Psychosis in Indigenous communities of North Queensland

Overview

The Remote Area Mental Health Service (RAMHS) has been the sole outreach psychiatric service to Cape York and the Torres Strait since 1992. Clinical data recorded by RAMHS psychiatrists provide a unique opportunity for research, as it contains documentation of comprehensive initial psychiatric assessments and ongoing management of all psychiatric patients since 1992. A program of research is ongoing to further explore in detail the epidemiology of psychosis between 1992 and 2015 in this Indigenous population, and to characterise the natural history of psychosis in this population during this period.

It is hypothesised that the data will show an increased incidence of psychosis during this period and may facilitate the identification of causal factors underlying the high prevalence of psychosis. This work will additionally examine several other aspects of psychosis in this population, including excess and cause-specific mortality, comorbid physical and mental illness, treatment retention rates and reasons for drop-out, and associated patterns of forensic and education outcomes.

Lead Investigator
Fiona Charlson

Funded by
NHMRC Early Career Fellowship – APP1138488

In partnership with
Queensland Health

CURRENT

COMPLETED