Don’t turn your back on the symptoms of psychosis: the results of a proof-of-principle, quasi-experimental intervention to reduce duration of untreated psychosis

BACKGROUND: No evidence based approach to reduce duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) has been effective in the UK. Existing interventions have many components and have been difficult to replicate. The majority of DUP in Birmingham, UK is accounted for by delays within mental health services (MHS) followed by help-seeking delay and, we hypothesise, these require explicit targeting. This study examined the feasibility and impact of an intervention to reduce DUP, targeting help-seeking and MHSs delays. METHODS: A dual-component intervention, comprising a direct care pathway, for 16-25 year olds, and a community psychosis awareness campaign, using our youth-friendly website as the central hub, was implemented, targeting the primary sources of care pathway delays experienced by those with long DUP. Evaluation, using a quasi-experimental, design compared DUP of cases in two areas of the city receiving early detection vs detection as usual, controlling for baseline DUP in each area. RESULTS: DUP in the intervention area was reduced from a median 71 days (mean 285) to 39 days (mean 104) following the intervention, with no change in the control area. Relative risk for the reduction in DUP was 0.74 (95 % CI 0.35 to 0.89; p = .004). Delays in MHSs and help-seeking were also reduced. CONCLUSIONS: Our targeted approach appears to be successful in reducing DUP and could provide a generalizable methodology applicable in a variety of healthcare contexts with differing sources of delay. More research is needed, however, to establish whether our approach is truly effective. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN45058713 - 30 December 2012. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-016-0816-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.