SPUR Project - School of Social Sciences funded bursary

2012 winner (13 of 14)

Measuring change in clinical symptom severity relative to baseline: a meta-analysis of recent randomised controlled trials of pharmacological and psychological interventions for schizophrenia
Supervisors: Dr Preethi Premkumar (Social Sciences), Professor Thom Baguley (Social Sciences) and Dr Mark Andrews (Social Sciences)

Different formulae have been used to calculate clinical change following treatment in reporting treatment efficacy in randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The proposed research project will consider different ways of estimating change relative to baseline by performing a meta-analysis of RCTs comparing (a) first generation antipsychotic drugs (FGAs) and second generation antipsychotic drugs (SGAs), and (b) cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp) and other psychological interventions in schizophrenia patients. Student tasks will include contribution to research design and refinement, extracting and storing data for each study, data analysis and reporting.