Sarah Knowles

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Sarah is a Research Fellow with the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Greater Manchester at the University of Manchester. She is a health researcher with a particular focus on evaluating mental health treatments and services. She works on a variety of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and qualitative studies. Her main research interests are implementation research, e-health and mental health technologies, co-morbidity of mental and physical health problems, moderators of treatment effects and patient and public involvement in research.

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Mental health service users on Twitter: a platform for feedback and support?

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Sarah Knowles considers the challenges facing researchers using Twitter to find out more about mental health service user experiences of feedback and support.

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How can we improve mental health services for young people? Ask them

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Sarah Knowles appraises and summarises a thematic analysis of young people’s views of UK mental health services, which calls for greater involvement of young people themselves in redesigning services to be more engaging and accessible.

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The impact of PPI on service users, researchers and communities

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Sarah Knowles and Ailsa Donnelly consider the findings on a systematic review which seeks to map the impact of patient and public involvement (PPI) on health and social care research.

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Are primary care interventions for intimate partner violence effective? I wish I could tell you

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Listen up systematic reviewers. Don’t make Sarah Knowles angry; you won’t like her when she’s angry. Cue a rather frustrated blog about new research on primary care interventions for intimate partner violence.

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We don’t know if general health advice improves physical health for patients with serious mental illness

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For me, one of the most infuriating aspects of health care is the relegation of mental health problems, and mental health services, as secondary to physical health. There are a myriad of examples of this, from the classic stigma that people with mental health problems receive compared to those with physical health problems (fantastically illustrated [read the full story…]

Why do GPs over prescribe benzodiazepines? Synthesis of qualitative studies

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Benzodiazepines are used to treat insomnia, anxiety and chronic back pain due to their sedative and muscle relaxing effects. They’ve got a sting in the tail though and can cause memory disruption, loss of coordination and dependence if used long term. It’s therefore recommended that other treatments, such as psychological interventions, are tried first and [read the full story…]

Insufficient evidence for sexual health promotion interventions in people with severe mental illness

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People with serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have higher morbidity and mortality rates due to physical illness. It’s estimated that people with SMI die 10-15 years earlier than the general population (DeHert et al, 2011). Increasingly attention is being paid to ways to improve the physical health of people with [read the full story…]

Financial incentives don’t increase depression screening for patients with chronic illness

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The lines between physical health and mental health are blurred in lots of ways, and one example is the fact that people with chronic physical conditions are also more likely to suffer from depression. As well as adding to their burden of illness, there’s also some evidence that those patients with comorbid depression have worse [read the full story…]

#MindfulnessMonday – Mindfulness moderately effective for reducing symptoms of psychosis, though controlled studies less convincing

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Last week, Elly O’Brien blogged about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for various physical and psychological disorders. Today, another paper from the same authors, looking at the more broadly defined ‘mindfulness interventions’ for psychosis. Elly talked about the use of mindfulness to escape the “emotional quicksand” of negative thoughts, and the authors here again focus on [read the full story…]