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. 2021 Apr 8:12:622562.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.622562. eCollection 2021.

Looking Back to Move Forward: Reflections on the Strengths and Challenges of the COVID-19 UK Mental Health Research Response

Ola Demkowicz  1 , Margarita Panayiotou  1 , Sam Parsons  2 , Amy Feltham  3 , Louise Arseneault  4 , Beth Ingram  5 , Praveetha Patalay  6 , Dawn Edge  7   8 , Matthias Pierce  7   9 , Cathy Creswell  2   10 , Christina Victor  11 , Rory C O'Connor  12 , Pamela Qualter  1
Affiliations

Looking Back to Move Forward: Reflections on the Strengths and Challenges of the COVID-19 UK Mental Health Research Response

Ola Demkowicz et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the swift response of mental health research funders and institutions, service providers, and academics enabled progress toward understanding the mental health consequences. Nevertheless, there remains an urgent need to understand the true extent of the short- and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, necessitating ongoing research. Although the speed with which mental health researchers have mobilized to respond to the pandemic so far is to be commended, there are valid concerns as to whether speed may have compromised the quality of our work. As the pandemic continues to evolve, we must take time to reflect on our initial research response and collectively consider how we can use this to strengthen ensuing COVID-19 mental health research and our response to future crises. Here, we offer our reflections as members of the UK mental health research community to discuss the continuing progress and persisting challenges of our COVID-19 response, which we hope can encourage reflection and discussion among the wider research community. We conclude that (1) Fragmentation in our infrastructure has challenged the efficient, effective and equitable deployment of resources, (2) In responding quickly, we may have overlooked the role of experts by experience, (3) Robust and open methods may have been compromised by speedy responses, and (4) This pandemic may exacerbate existing issues of inequality in our workforce.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; coproduction; mental health research; open science; robust methods; workforce inequality.

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Conflict of interest statement

OD is the Principal Investigator of the TELL Study (Teenagers' Experiences of Life in Lockdown; partially funded by The University of Manchester Economic and Social Research Council Impact Account fund). MPa is the Principal Investigator of the Covid-19, Social Media & Mental Health study (unfunded), and is involved in the Survey of Health and Wellbeing–Monitoring the Impact of COVID-19 (led by Dr. Michelle Lim, Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University). SP is working on the “Oxford Achieving Resilience during COVID study” (Oxford ARC study); this project is funded by the ESRC [ES/R004285/1]. PP is involved in various mental health research activities in the context of COVID-19. MPi published two papers on mental health and the Covid-19 pandemic. This was unfunded. CC is the principal investigator for Co-SPACE, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation Council. RO'C reports grants from NIHR, grants from Medical Research Foundation, grants from Scottish Government, grants from NHS Health Scotland/Public Health Scotland, grants from Samaritans, grants from Scottish Association for Mental Health, grants from Mindstep Foundation, outside the submitted work; and he is co-chair of the Academic Advisory Group to the Scottish Government's National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group. He is also a member of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence's guideline development group for the new NICE self-harm guidelines. PQ is involved in two COVID projects: the Covid-19, Social Media & Mental Health study (led by Dr. Margarita Panayiotou), and the Survey of Health and Wellbeing–Monitoring the Impact of COVID-19 (led by Dr. Michelle Lim, Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University). The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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