| Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder are serious mental illnesses that affect about 65 million people worldwide. |
An image of the world rotates as people pop up and rotate around it. |
| These illnesses usually emerge in early adulthood. |
3 young adults come into shot, a female, a male and a non-binary person. |
| But by the time they’re diagnosed, there’s often already a lot of disability. |
The female young adult sits on a chair and moves into a new scene where she is talking to a Adult Mental Health Services doctor. She is now slightly older. Thought bubbles appear from her head. The first reads ‘Employment’ and displays an unsuccessful job application letter. The second reads ‘Relationships’ and displays the persons looking sad as she looks at her smart phone and sees a social media post of her friends socialising without her. The third reads ‘Education’ and displays an image of the high-school that she used to attend. |
| We need to get better at identifying risk for these mental illnesses earlier in life so we can reduce this disability or even prevent the illnesses altogether. |
The doctor is now alone, as he moves into the next scene in front of his desk. The laptop on his desk shows a graph representing risk, and the camera zooms into his laptop which then displays the word ‘Prevention’. |
| Our current approach to identifying people at risk of psychosis, called the Clinical High Risk approach, captures just 4% to 14% of all cases, even at the best clinical centres. |
The next scene displays 100 people appearing in 5 rows of 20 people, to represent 100% of people with psychosis. 4 of the people are highlighted, which then increases to 14 to represent the percentage captured. |
| Which means that we miss 86% to 96% of people who will develop psychotic illnesses, like schizophrenia. |
Those 14 people disappear, and the remaining 86 are highlighted, which then increases to 96 people, to represent the percentage of people who are missed. |
| This study asked: what if we investigated earlier in life and, instead of focusing on people who already have psychotic symptoms, |
A sign pops up that reads: ‘What if we investigated earlier in life?’ followed by a light bulb above it to represent the idea. A young girl is standing by the sign. |
| we looked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, or CAMHS. |
This scene is replaced by another sign that reads: ‘Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services’. Behind it is a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services building with ‘Outpatients’ and ‘Inpatients’ signs above 2 doors. |
| Young people come to CAMHS for all sorts of problems. But very few have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. |
Around Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (or CAMHS) building, bubbles appear with different problems that young people attend CAMHS for; Attention problems, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, eating problems, social communication, self harm and tics. |
| But! What about if we could follow all the young people who attended CAMHS into adulthood? Would many cases of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder occur in these young people as they grow older? |
Outside of the CAMHS unit we see many children and young people appear. A nurse is waving at them to welcome them. |
| This study followed all 60,000 people born in Finland in 1987 from birth to age 28. |
A sign pops up that reads ‘60,000 people’ and we see 5 versions of a person to represent the studies age span; a baby, a toddler, a young girl, an young adult and a 28 year old woman. A number counter fast forward from age 9 to age 28. |
| The researchers found that 15% of all adolescents who had attended outpatient CAMHS and 37% of all adolescents who had spent time in a CAMHS inpatient unit were diagnosed with psychosis or bipolar disorder by the time they were 28 years old. |
We return back to the outside of the CAMHS building next to the outpatients door, where we see 7 young people. One of them is highlighted to approximately represent the percentage of outpatients diagnosed with psychosis or bipolar disorder by the time they were 28 years old.. The camera pans across to the right where we see 8 young people next to the inpatients door. 3 of them are highlighted to approximately represent the percentage of inpatients diagnosed. Lastly we see the 4 highlighted people alone in-front of the CAMHS building. We see them change from being children and adolescents to 28 year old adukts. Each of them drops their head, looking sad. |
| What’s more, more than half of all cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder occurred in people who had, at some point in childhood, attended CAMHS. |
Again we see 100 people in 5 rows of 20. 54 of them are highlighted to represent the 54% of people schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who had attended CAMHS during childhood. We then see these 54 people enter the CAMHS building. |
| This means there’s a huge, untapped potential for prediction of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder within CAMHS. |
The next scene shows a town with a CAMHS building in the centre. A large magnifying glass appears and focuses in on the CAMHS building. |
| And these findings suggest that if we want to predict and prevent these serious mental illnesses, we should focus in on CAMHS. |
The magnifying glass zooms into the CAMHS building through the window. Inside we see a doctor talking to a young boy, a researcher is pointing at statistics on a white board, and tow other researchers are carrying out scientific tests. |
| No audio. |
The closing scene displays a sign with the World Psychiatry logo at the top and the title of the research paper with reads: ‘Research report: Potential for prediction of psychosis and bipolar disorder in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: a longitudinal register study of all people born in Finland in 1987.’ Underneath it the researchers are named: ‘Ulla Lång, Huge Ramsay, Kathryn Yates, Juha Veijola, David Gyllenberg, Mary C. Clarke, Finbarr P.Leacy, Mika Gissler, Ian Kelleher.’ Another sign below displays the Health Research Board logo. |
