The mental health of individuals with one or more long terms conditions (LTCs) is of great importance for NHS England, practitioners and health service researchers. Approximately 4.6 million people experience one or more physical long term conditions and live with co-morbid mental health complaints. The impact of such co-morbidity is significant and costly, on both an individual, familial, and nation-wide scale.
Last month Manchester played host to a conference thatw as novel as it was timely. The co-morbidity conference "Working together to meet the challenge of co-morbid physical and psychological illness", was the first conference organised by the team behind the CHOICE Project, an NIHR funded collaboration between the University of Manchester, Manchester City Council and Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust.
The free one day conference comprised of
oral and poster presentations, however an emphasis was placed on discussion of
issues raised by the speakers. Attendees, including clinicians, researchers and
lay members were able to discuss a range of issues including the challenges of
multi-morbidity in primary care, collaborative care for patients with LTC and
the use of remote technologies to support self-management in the community. Notable
presentations came from Professors, Chris Dickens (University of Exeter),
Professor Nigel Mathers (University of Sheffield), Andre Tylee (King’s CollegeLondon), Else Guthrie & Karina Lovell (University of Manchester), and AllanHouse (University of Leeds).
Katherine Easton, from the RAT group and CLAHRCSY, presented a poster of her PhD research examining the measurement and impact
of symptoms of anxiety in patients with a diagnosis of heart failure. Katherine
and members of the RAT group have recently formed a special interest group
within the larger RAT research team to explore further the psychology of
technology and applications in the area of mental health and LTCs. A PDF copy of Katherine’s poster is available
on request.
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