Optimising digitally augmented psychological therapies for children and young people through analysis of routinely captured data

Lead supervisor:  Prof. Cathy Creswell 

Co-supervisor: Dr Eleanor Leigh

Commercial partner: Koa Health

Clinical academics at the University of Oxford have developed and evaluated two digitally augmented psychological therapies that have been recommended in a recent NICE Early Value Assessment for online treatments for child and adolescent anxiety and low mood:
- Online Support and Intervention for child anxiety problems (OSI)
- Online Social anxiety Cognitive Therapy for Adolescents (OSCA)

Oxford University and Oxford University Innovations have recently entered into a license agreement with Koa Health who are taking forward at-scale implementation of these programmes in the NHS and associated services.

In both programmes young people or parents access core treatment content via the online platforms with remote (telephone/video call) support from a therapist. The programmes also both incorporate routine outcome measures so that patient progress is captured regularly throughout treatment. As such the widespread implementation of the programmes provides an unparalleled opportunity to create large robust datasets to enable detailed examination of the programmes.

This DPhil project will involve working closely with the Oxford academics and the Koa Health partners to receive hands-on training in the implementation and evaluation of leading digital mental health treatments within NHS settings, developing high level skills in data management and analysis (including machine learning approaches).

The student will examine the following key questions:
1. How have machine learning approaches been used to identify predictors of outcomes and progress through treatment for psychological therapies.
2. What patient and within-treatment activity characteristics are associated with better/worse clinical outcomes from the implementation of digitally augmented treatments in routine child mental health services?
3. What are the trajectories of symptom change throughout treatment in routine practice and can they be predicted from baseline patient characteristics and within treatment activity?

The opportunity to work across both programmes will enable the student to examine the extent to which findings are treatment-specific or shared across the different programmes.

Building on their findings, the student will be supported by the academic and commercial teams to identify and test data-driven areas for ongoing improvement of the programmes.

OSI and OSCA are front runners in the widespread implementation of digitally augmented psychological therapies in child mental health services in the UK. This DPhil studentship will provide a unique opportunity to work with the University developers and the commercial implementation partner to build knowledge and practice to maximise the benefits of these approaches, and digitally augmented psychological therapies more broadly, for individual families and for clinical services. Of note, this DPhil will help deliver the MRC’s priorities and ambition to build high-quality capacity in precision medicine, data science (building skills in data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning), translational medicine, and will support a talented applicant to move effectively between the academic and commercial sectors.

Apply using course: DPhil in Experimental Psychology