Women's mental health
Mission statement
To improve the life outcomes of vulnerable women and their families.
Key research themes and current projects
Maternal condition, parenting and offspring outcomes using population databases in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Western Australia and the UK
- Observational studies of lifetime outcomes of the offspring of mentally ill parents
- Observational studies of childhood mortality outcomes of these offspring
- Observational studies of maternal and parental condition and offspring psychiatric outcomes
- Observational studies of birth weight and fetal growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes including autism spectrum and schizophrenia
Women and mental health
- Mortality outcomes of teenage mothers and their offspring
- Suicide in middle aged women using UK national databases
- Maternal experience of adverse life events and childhood body mass index using the Avon Longitudinal data
Women who kill
- The homicide of infants using national UK databases
- Women who kill and their pathways to care
- Filicide and mental illness
Parenting, basic science and neuroimaging studies
- Maternal responsiveness and its relation to child attachment in health mothers
- Maternal responsiveness in new mothers with schizophrenia
- Maternal responsiveness in new mothers with post natal depression
- Describing the distribution of maternal responsivity in healthy mothers
- The relationship of maternal responsiveness to mother infant interaction and maternal Oxytocin levels
- Parental responsiveness in mothers, non mothers and fathers and the effect of intranasal oxytocin
- Effects of antenatal maternal diet on offspring HPA axis sensitivity
Clinical studies
- Oxytocin and its effect on cognitive function in stable chronic schizophrenia
- Evaluation of Women's enhanced Medium Secure Services
- Piloting targeted parenting interventions in mothers with serious mental illness
- The RESPOND trial an RCT of health visitor listening and antidepressants in postnatal depression in General practice
- The WORSHIP I study: Piloting a Self Harm intervention for women prisoners
Further details:
Future and planned studies
- Hearing and language deficits and schizophrenia risk
- Paternal age and risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outomes
- Paternal age and physical morbidity
- A full RCT of the WORSHIP trial
- Piloting the evaluation of an e-learning Sexual Health Initiative (SHI process) in women with SMI by training mental health professionals
- Assessing the role of domestic abuse on offspring outcomes
