Trauma-informed mental health research

How do you design a clinical trial invitation for someone whose condition means the letter itself could trigger distress? How do you interview someone about a process that may cause them anxiety? These are not edge cases. Mental health conditions affect one in four people in England. The people whose voices most need to be heard in mental health research are often the ones most at risk of avoiding taking part.

We have worked with NHS England on exactly this problem to identify best practices in engaging people with mental health conditions in research. Working with clinicians, ethicists, PPIE specialists and lived experience groups we produced implementable guidance on how clinical trial invitations should handle triggers, stigma, consent and the erosion of trust in NHS services. This work has since shaped surveys of people with mental health conditions and dementia to test behavioural nudges in trial invitations. The findings are now informing how NHS England designs recruitment for mental health studies.

The same principles shape how we run research itself. For DWP we have engaged 100s of PIP applicants with mental health conditions or neurodiversity to inform both service and policy development. For Mind, we have explored how people use digital and AI tools to manage their mental health, including younger people, people with severe conditions, and people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. For Sense we have engaged people with severe cognitive disabilities to help inform brand positioning.

Research with vulnerable audiences is not a matter of adding a safeguarding line to a topic guide. It is a design discipline. One we have spent years refining and received awards in recognition of our expertise here. Our work shows what it means, in practice, to hear from people whose voices are too often missing from the evidence.