New Medical Tool Predicts the Onset of Psychosis

Sharon Moore February 14, 2013

Predicting the number of people that are at risk of developing psychosis is critical in developing strategies to prevent it. Currently, health officials make use of a programme called ‘early intervention in psychosis services’ (EIS) which is designed to help young individuals in England deal with the early stages of this mental illness. The problem was that the EIS is based on a single, high estimate involving the rest of England. Because of this, some parts of England which need more EIS received fewer services while other parts gained more assistance when they only require less. The inaccuracy of estimates is a major barrier towards the creation of suitable treatments for psychotic patients.

At present, it is estimated that 32 out of 100,000 people in England develop psychosis, but the figure could be higher in urban areas.

New Tool to Predict the Risk of Psychosis

Fortunately, scientists at the University of Cambridge came up with a tool designed to predict the number of individuals who are vulnerable to psychosis. Such tool makes prediction based on several factors, such as the age, sex, ethnicity and the population density.

To test the effectiveness of the tool, the researchers, led by Dr James Kirkbride from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, made predictions based on different scenarios concerning the risk of psychosis in the general population and compared the results with the actual data. In East Anglia for instance, Dr Kirkbride and his team predicted that there will be 502 individuals who are going to demonstrate symptoms of psychosis. When compared with the actual statistics, there were 522. The tool is so far the most accurate strategy to predict the risk of the disease in England.

Nevertheless, the researchers said that prediction alone is not enough to be used as basis in creating service commissioning decisions. They argued that the actual pressure on mental health and the resources they require is likely to exceed the tool’s prediction because some people may require treatments and services even though they do not meet the clinical criteria for psychosis.

Professor Peter Jones, Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, says early intervention is cost-effective because vulnerable individuals tend to recover and get their life back. He adds that the tool does not only provide reliable estimate of how many people are going to be affected by the disease, but also provides insights into the sociodemographic characteristics of affected individuals.

Health officials are looking forward to the inclusion of the tool in the current EIS system to ensure effectiveness of preventive measures. Moreover, it can help reduce government spending on mental illness, which hits billions of pounds every year.

Source of this article:

Tool predicts incidence of psychosis