PhD in Psychology: Making the invisible visible: Using lived experiences of severe mental illness around childbirth to co-produce tools for individualised pregnancy planning

3-year full time PhD at the National Centre for Mental Health, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences due to commence in October 2018.
Bipolar disorder is a severe and common condition, affecting around 3 in every 100 people. It is characterised by episodes of high mood (mania) and low mood (depression). For women with bipolar disorder, 4 to 5 in every 10 are at risk of having an episode of illness in pregnancy or following childbirth (called the perinatal period). Women are 23 times more likely to be admitted to psychiatric hospital with an episode of bipolar disorder in the month following childbirth than at any other time in their life. These illness episodes can impact on the lives of women and their families, disrupting the relationship with the new baby.
Women with bipolar disorder, therefore, have very difficult decisions to make about pregnancy. These include stopping, switching or continuing medications with all of these options having potential risks and benefits. Work from our group has shown that women have great difficulty in getting the information they need and in working with clinical services to develop a plan for pregnancy and the postpartum period.
In this project we will work with Action on Postpartum Psychosis (www.app-network.org), the leading 3rd sector organisation in this area, and women with lived experience to develop and test a “Collaborative Guide” to aid co-production and joint decision making. This will enable women at high risk to take an enhanced role in planning their pregnancy and postpartum period. We will disseminate the guide through APP directly to women, enabling them to work with their health care professionals to tailor plans to their specific social situation and individual illness and treatment history. This project will help women make decisions about becoming pregnant, reduce their risk of becoming unwell in the perinatal period, and improve their access to care if they experience an episode of illness.