A piece of research that Dr Hermine Graham led on has received a research impact award which was awarded to one of the co-authors, Emma Griffiths at the University of Bath.
A piece of research that Dr Hermine Graham led on has received a research impact award which was awarded to one of the co-authors, Emma Griffiths at the University of Bath.
This research (Graham, Copello, Griffith, Clarke, Walsh, Baker & Birchwood, 2018) wanted to assess whether an admission to a mental health hospital is a teachable moment, that is a “window of opportunity” during which ward staff can start conversations with inpatients about their alcohol and drug misuse that bring about positive changes.
This research began in 2013, when as the Principal investigator, with a leading team of Co-applicants (Professors Alex Copello, Max Birchwood, Nick Freemantle and Paul McCrone, and Dr Emma Griffiths), Dr Hermine Graham was awarded a grant of £234,269, by the National Institute for Health Research-Research for Patient Benefit to fund a pilot randomized controlled research trial that used a CBT-based brief motivational intervention to engage and reduce alcohol and drug misuse in those with severe mental health problems who are admitted to mental health in-patient wards across a mental health NHS Trust. She led in the development of the treatment approach and jointly trained 33 multi-disciplinary mental health inpatient and specialist staff to deliver the intervention across 14 acute psychiatric wards.
The results from this proof of principle study were positive. The findings have been disseminated; as lead author the study protocol was published in Trials (Graham, Birchwood, Griffith…Copello et al, 2014), the main results of the study published in Acta Psychiatric Scandinavica (Graham, Copello, Birchwood, Griffith et al., 2016), a description of the treatment approach published in Advances in Dual Diagnosis (Graham, Griffith, Copello &Birchwood, 2016) ; and the treatment manual published by John Wiley & Son (Graham, Copello, Birchwood &Griffith, 2016). This research award was for a publication of the qualitative findings of the study in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction (Graham, Copello, Griffith…Birchwood, 2018)
Dr Hermine Graham with a group of collaborators has developed, over the past 20 years, a programme of research focusing on the relationship between substance misuse and mental health that seeks to improve treatment outcomes in mental health treatment settings. This work has been implemented in NHS settings, cited in Department of Health policy guidelines (DoH, 2002) and resulted in a number academic peer-reviewed publications including two treatment manuals published by John Wiley & Son in 2004 and 2016.
