The NIHR Trauma MIC has been awarded funding for a Mental Health workstream. This will run alongside our other three clinical themes and is being led by both Professor Jonathon Bisson and Professor Alan Finnegan. This workstream will focus on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD, particularly in patients and veterans who have either experienced or witnessed a traumatic injury. Work within PTSD is vital given its high, yet under-reported, prevalence and impact.
Aims of the Mental Health/ PTSD Theme
This workstream aims to develop a PSTD patient and public involvement (PPI) group; this group will be involved in generating learning about increasing engagement of individuals in PTSD research and treatment. The health economics impact of PTSD will also be explored.
A competition will be announced by the NIHR Trauma MIC within the next few months for medical device-based solutions that address the prevention and management of the psychological impact of traumatic physical injury. Both Prof Bisson and Finnegan will be panel members providing an expert review of the applications and will help to select the winning three early-stage projects. Please check our website and twitter for more frequent updates on the competition.
Theme Leads Prof Alan Finnegan and Prof Jonathon Bisson
Professor Alan Finnegan is Professor of Nursing and Military Mental Health (MH) and Director of the Westminster Centre for Veterans Research at the University of Chester. Alan was previously a British Army Nursing Officer, with his final appointment being as the first MoD Professor of Nursing at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham. He deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans, Northern Ireland and South Africa. Alan has experience of leading complex MOD and military veteran specific mixed methodological studies. Since commencing at the University of Chester in 2016, Alan has been appointed as the principal investigator for over 30 research projects including awards from the NHS, Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, Health Education England, Forces in Mind Trust and Business.
Alan is a Courtesy Professor at the University of South Florida and a Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University. He is the Assistant Editor of Nurse Education Today, and an international board member of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Alan is Chair of the Contact Research sub-group and a committee member of the NHS Armed Forces Clinical Reference Group and a member of their MH and Primary Healthcare sub-committees.
Professor Jonathon Bisson is a practising psychiatrist and professor in psychiatry at Cardiff University and Director of Traumatic Stress Wales and HHP Wales. He was co-chair of the UK’s first PTSD NICE Guideline Development Group and chaired the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies’ Treatment Guidelines Committee. He developed and continues to lead Cardiff University’s Traumatic Stress Research Group. He developed NHS Veterans Wales. He has been awarded 37 research grants worth over £20 million. His current research includes a randomised controlled trial of a guided self help intervention for mild to moderate PTSD that he pioneered and a PTSD Registry. He has over 150 publications, regularly teaches and supervises undergraduates, postgraduates, health and other professionals. He has delivered over 150 presentations to various meetings and conferences in 17 different countries, including 42 keynote/plenary presentations.
