Research centre aims to prevent severe mental illness

Today, many individuals with severe mental illness enter the healthcare system late, sometimes only when they are very ill and end up in the emergency room. This makes it more difficult to help them and complicates their journey to recovery. Simon Cervenka, a professor at the Department of Medical Sciences, wants to change that. He heads the new research initiative called the Uppsala Centre for Preventive Psychiatry.

“We know that early support and treatment for severe mental illness leads to better outcomes for people. The problem is that the systems we have in place to care for people in the very early stages are rather underdeveloped,” says Simon Cervenka.

Digital tools for identifying risk

In an ongoing European collaboration, researchers from countries such as the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain are evaluating and testing digital tools that can be applied to medical record data. Based on a patient’s history, the tools can identify individuals at increased risk of developing conditions such as psychosis. The project is coordinated from Uppsala.

“If several risk factors accumulate, it can be said that this individual’s risk is several times higher than average. But this must be supplemented with a clinical assessment,” says Simon Cervenka.

Individuals who have experienced psychosis themselves suggest that there is often a window of opportunity during which early intervention can make a significant difference, for example, when they have been in contact with their primary care centre but felt unable to discuss unpleasant thoughts they had experienced.

“Individuals may be interested in receiving help in the early stages but then progress too far in their illness. At that point, an individual may no longer want to seek care,” says Simon Cervenka.

Interdisciplinary approach

The Centre brings together researchers from a range of disciplines – from medicine and psychology to the humanities, social medicine and health economics. An important part of this involves how we label and understand mental health conditions, particularly when encountering young people in a state of risk.

“We don’t want to alarm people unnecessarily, but we also do not want to downplay a possible need for care and support. What can we actually say about risk, and what do we have to support our claims? We want to delve deeper into these issues and communicate in a way that is tailored to the people concerned,” says Simon Cervenka.

Health economics analyses are also key. The researchers want to investigate whether preventive measures are socio-economically justifiable.

New knowledge about what works

Even though healthcare is involved, Simon Cervenka emphasises that this is a research centre. The goal is to develop new knowledge about what works before various initiatives are scaled up.

“We want to bring about change, but it has to be based on new knowledge. There hasn’t really been any coordination around this type of research in Sweden. We need to take a holistic approach here,” he says.

Currently, nine researchers from different scientific fields at Uppsala University are involved, and a total of 25–30 individuals are already affected. In the long term, the researchers hope to become a national centre for issues relating to preventive psychiatry. International collaboration is an important part of this, including collaboration with countries that have made much more progress in this area, such as the UK.

“Sweden needs to catch up in this area, so it feels very meaningful to be working on this. The European Commission has a special focus on preventive health and has highlighted mental illness as an important area.”

Annica Hulth