Prescribing antipsychotics has increased steadily in England over the last decade. For serious mental health conditions like schizophrenia, they are prescribed with the view of keeping the patient on them indefinitely. Antipsychotics are also prescribed off-label for conditions like anxiety or insomnia. Many people want to stop taking antipsychotics due to side effects or the medication no longer working however when people stop taking the medication they can experience severe withdrawal effects. Currently, there are no established guidelines on how to stop taking antipsychotics which may be the reason behind psychiatrist reluctance to support this. However there is emerging evidence that slow and cautious reductions will improve withdrawal outcomes for people with schizophrenia who want to come off or reduce their antipsychotic medication. Little is known of the wider factors like support from health care professionals or a network of friends and family on successful withdrawal outcomes.
Involving people with lived experience in the design of the study and also at analysis and designing implementation is a key part of the PhD. The lead supervisor has established links with local support groups to help with this. The project would also include a lived experience advisor as part of the supervisory team.
This PhD will focus on exploring the factors at the individual, organisational and systems level that impact the withdrawal outcomes for people attempting to withdraw. The aim is to develop a framework for supporting people undergoing withdrawal by focusing on the context, mechanisms, and outcomes. The proposed methods would be qualitative in-depth interviews, however, depending on the candidate's expertise, mixed methods could also be used. This project would be suitable for a student with a health, social science or humanities background such as sociology, psychology, pharmacy or nursing.
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