NIHR-funded PhD Studentship: ‘Harnessing electronic health records to understand and improve treatment access and outcomes for neurodivergent youth with mental health needs’

Funding amount: ‘Home’ tuition fees, a doctoral stipend (£19,237 per year) and research funding.

There is a huge gap in mental health provision for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and oppositional defiant disorder, which is problematic given their extremely high rates of co-occurring anxiety and/or depression. Needs and outcome reporting in children and young people's mental health services is highly variable, making it difficult to get a complete picture of the current service provision and identify opportunities for targeted intervention. It is therefore unclear how well these services are catering to neurodivergent youth and whether modifications to existing treatments are needed (e.g., adapted CBT).   

Stakeholders have highlighted the challenges of assessing current service provision and outcomes for neurodivergent youth. This is in part due to inconsistencies in who can access services, how neurodevelopmental status is recorded in electronic records, if at all, and variations in the outcome measures used. The aim of this PhD, which is part of a major new NIHR project on youth mental health, is to work with these key stakeholders to address these issues. This will be achieved by mapping current provision followed by work to improve the recording of these conditions by developing a standardised set of measures to capture the needs and outcomes for neurodivergent youth in community mental health services.   

PhD Objectives:  

• To scope current community mental health service provision and digital reporting for neurodivergent youth using electronic health records.  
• To work with neurodivergent youths and other stakeholders (e.g., service providers) to co-produce a set of reporting measures that capture their needs and desired outcomes for use in community mental health services.   
• To work with services and the digital health company Mayden to explore the implementation and evaluation of these reporting measures within their iaptus patient management software.   

This PhD is co-funded by the NIHR Mental Health Research Group at the University of Bath, and Mayden (https://mayden.co.uk/), a Bath-based company whose patient management system (iaptus) is used widely in services across the UK. The student will join a thriving team of PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and academics based at the University of Bath and they will gain industry experience working with the sector leading company Mayden.  

Candidate Requirements:

Undergraduate qualifications – a 1^st or 2:1 Honours degree in Psychology or equivalent.

Postgraduate qualifications – a relevant MSc or appropriate research training (e.g., working as a Research Assistant) is desirable, but not essential.

Essential: skills in quantitative research methods; interest in clinically applied research and PPI/co-production.

Desirable: commitment to open science practices; experience of working with children/young people or neurodivergent groups.

The successful applicant will need to have an enhanced DBS check.

Enquiries and Applications:

Informal enquiries are encouraged and should be directed to:

Dr Katherine Button - k.s.button@bath.ac.uk 

Applications should be submitted via the University of Bath’s online system for a PhD by clicking the 'Apply' button, above, by the 7^th April 2025.

Please specify ‘Other’ and ‘NIHR Mental Health Research Group’ in the Funding your studies section and the project title in the Your PhD project section and upload a personal statement (max. 2 pages) explaining why you are interested in studying at Bath and how this PhD fits with your career plans.

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