Bristol

Open Science advocates for open access to research, including data that has been generated or captured through a trial. In the UK there has been a movement toward adopting open science with increasing expectation amongst funders and publishers of health and social care research that data be made available for re-use. We are currently preparing a dataset collected through the IMPPP trial so that it can be used by other researchers for secondary analysis.

Improving Medicines use in People with Polypharmacy in Primary Care – The IMPPP trial

The Improving Medicines use in People with Polypharmacy in Primary Care (IMPPP) cluster randomised trial evaluated a complex medication review intervention against usual care. The intervention included a clinical informatics tool to identify patients aged 18+, receiving ≥5 long-term medications and with potentially inappropriate prescribing. Training was provided to clinicians to support delivery of a four-stage medication review (i.e. a pharmacist case-note review, interprofessional collaborative discussion between the pharmacist and a general practitioner, a review with patient, and follow-up where clinically indicated). Alongside this an integrated process evaluation was also conducted.

With participant consent, the trial team collected different types of data, including data from electronic health records, training evaluation forms, patient participant questionnaires, semi-structured interviews with clinicians and patients and audio-recordings of medication reviews.

Student project
Following last years successful internship which focused on preparing IMPPP trial qualitative data, the focus for this 2026 placement will be the quantitative data. You will be supported by Dr Caddick and Dr McCahon to prepare a data deposit of IMPPP trial data for the University of Bristol Research Data Repository. This will include discussion of ethical considerations, how to contextualise a quantitative research dataset with useful metadata and develop guides to enable use of a secondary research dataset.

Background:

People with serious mental illnesses (SMI), such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are more likely to be overweight, which increases the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Heart disease is a leading cause of the 15-20-year reduced life expectancy in people with SMI. This study aims to address that risk.

In the United Kingdom, general practices can refer anyone who is overweight to local weight loss programmes, which can help people lose weight. But people with SMI often report that it is hard to join or stay with these programmes, and the NHS usually does not provide extra support to help them take part.

In this study, we want to see if extra support can help people with SMI take part in weight loss programmes. Adults with SMI who are overweight and registered at participating general practice will be invited to join. General practices will look at their patient lists and contact people who they feel it is safe and appropriate to invite. Those who agree to take part will first meet a researcher to give some information about themselves, including their weight, mood, and mental health. This is called the baseline assessment and will help us understand how things start for each person.

After baseline, general practices will refer participants to a local tier 2 12-week weight loss programme and a link worker, an NHS staff member trained to provide practical and emotional support in the practice. The study starts with a one-off “Meet Your Mentor” session”, where the link worker helps participants enrol in the weight loss programme and answers any questions. Participants will then receive weekly 30-minute “Mentor Check-In” calls from their link worker for 12 weeks to provide encouragement and support.

The main aim of the study is to see if it is possible to run this kind of support in general practices (feasible) and whether participants and link workers find it helpful (acceptable). After 14 weeks from baseline, we will check how many people joined and stayed in the study, as well as the number of “Mentor Check-In” they attended. Participants and link workers will be invited to interviews to share their experiences. Participants will meet again with the researcher for a follow-up assessment, where we will repeat the weight, mood, and mental health measures.

This study was designed with people who have lived experience of SMI and being overweight, and with link workers, to make sure it is helpful and relevant. If it shows that link worker support helps people with SMI take part in weight loss programmes, we will plan a bigger study to see if it also helps them stick with the programme and lose weight more successfully than those referred without link worker support.