Early psychosis treatment and care is set to benefit from a major Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant that will enable the Australian Early Psychosis Collaborative Consortium (AEPCC) to roll out its world-first infrastructure in more clinical services across Australia.
Convened by Orygen, AEPCC brings together research, clinical services and people with lived experience to better understand and treat psychosis, and streamlines the translation of research into real-world practice.
The new $3 million MRFF grant will help AEPCC expand its Clinical Quality Registry (CQR) at up to 20 more early psychosis clinical services across all states and territories.
The CQR provides immediate benefits to patients, making it easier for clinicians to work with young people to chart progress and create summaries that are meaningful and useful for people experiencing psychosis and those who support them.
Psychosis affects about 30,000 Australians every year and can have devastating impacts, and – as with cancer – early detection can be lifesaving. However, there is currently no test for psychosis and no definitive cause or treatment for the condition, with limited understanding of how young people experience treatments and which are most effective long term.
Professor Andrew Thompson, Head of Early Psychosis Research at Orygen, said the CQR is the first of its kind in mental health, allowing clinicians to work with patients to chart progress, identify what works and what doesn’t, and make treatment decisions together.
“We’ve seen clinical quality registries successfully used for decades in other areas of health, and AEPCC is proud to be the first to implement this approach in the youth mental health field,” Professor Thompson said.
“Psychosis is a drastically underfunded area of healthcare, as a comparison, around the same number of people are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, but we are only halfway there in terms of understanding what helps people experiencing psychosis.
“This much-needed grant will help us accelerate improvements to treatments and the care system by helping us better understand young people’s experiences and the treatments they find most effective.”
The CQR is a web-based application and was developed with input from the lived experience community to ensure treatment summaries are meaningful and useful for people experiencing psychosis, their clinicians and supporters.
The MRFF funding will also enable linkages with other health datasets to more fully understand patient experiences and improve care.
Orygen Executive Director, Professor Patrick McGorry, said the funding would help fill significant gaps in the current understanding and treatment of psychosis.
“The CQR is an important tool for improving clinical care for young people experiencing early psychosis, because it helps to identify the most appropriate treatments and areas of improvement, and supports the development of new treatments through linkages with clinical trials and research,” Professor McGorry said.
“This significant grant will support AEPCC’s incredible team – guided by its network of young people with lived experience – to continue their groundbreaking work, ensuring young people experiencing psychosis have access to the best treatments available and more opportunities to play an active role in their care.
“This unique collaborative consortium is bringing together the best minds in the world to understand this stigmatised and complex condition, and Orgyen is proud to be the convener of AEPCC and to support its vital work.”
The AEPCC CQR was developed through a collaboration between Orygen, the University of Melbourne, headspace, Monash University and Deakin University, with funding from the Wellcome Trust. AEPCC is now also collaborating with the University of Western Australia, University of Adelaide, University of Canberra, NSW Ministry of Health and Metro North Mental Health (Queensland Government).
The grant is part of the MRFF’s $650 million National Critical Research Infrastructure Initiative, providing funding to establish and extend infrastructure (facilities, equipment, systems and services) of critical importance to conducting Australia’s health and medical research.