Centre for Psychological Services Research
Mission statement
The Centre's mission statement is "to provide a national and international lead in research improving the development and delivery of psychological services for the benefit of people´s well being"
The Vision
The Centre for Psychological Services Research is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University's School of Health & Related Research (ScHARR) and Department of Psychology. The Centre is headed by Professor Michael Barkham together with an executive team comprising Professors John Brazier (ScHARR), Gillian Hardy (Clinical Psychology Unit) and Glenys Parry (ScHARR).
The aim of the Centre is to improve decision-making, quality, and outcomes of services providing psychological treatment to people who have mental or physical health problems. It will do this by establishing interdisciplinary and collaborative research activity via a range of research programmes operating at local, national, and international levels. Its name reflects the unique positioning of Psychological Services Research (PSR) which combines the techniques and disciplines of Health Services Research together with those of psychological research.
Hallmarks of the new Centre are its espousal of equipoise in researching the diversity of psychological therapies, commitment to translational research, collaboration with practitioners and service users, and openness to the full array of research and statistical methods.
A CPSR Board oversees the national and international strategy and includes Professors Graham Turpin (Clinical Psychology Unit; Chair), Ron Akehurst (ScHARR), Pam Enderby (ScHARR), Jon Nicholl (ScHARR), Dr Steve Kellett (Clinical Psychology Unit), and Bridget Strong (User representative).
Psychological Services Research combines the techniques and disciplines of Health Services Research and psychological research, with the aim of improving decision-making, quality and outcomes of services treating psychological problems. It draws on a range of methods including pragmatic randomised trials, whole system evaluation, detailed process analysis and health economic modelling.
Hallmarks of Research Programme
The emphasis is on pragmatic multi-method approaches to translational research, aimed at improving the organisation and delivery of psychological services and placing health economics in a central role in their evaluation.
We have a particular interest in linking findings on therapy process, efficacy and cost-effectiveness, for example, through building and analyzing very large naturalistic data sets derived from UK service settings; comparing these with large international data sets on costs and outcomes; benchmarking outcomes against data from controlled clinical trials and understanding these services in the wider context of public mental health and well being.
The Centre had its official launch on 9th November 2007. The above photo shows most of the key contributors to the event.
Contact
For further information on the CPSR, please contact:
Mrs Abby Constantine
Health Services Research
ScHARR
The University of Sheffield
Regent Court, 30 Regent St
Sheffield, S1 4DA
Tel: +44(0)114 22 20753
email : Abby Constantine