Call for Papers: Precision Medicine and Personalised Healthcare in Psychiatry
Submission Due Date: 1st September 2021
Rationale
The past few years has seen a rapid increase in the use of data science in psychiatry research across the lifespan- including the use of data driven and model based approaches for diagnostic, prognostic, and treatment response predictions. Data science is also being used to identify new illness subgroups using questionnaire data, biomarker or brain imaging data, or combinations therein, that transcend traditional diagnostic groups for potential use in the development for new targeted treatments. Statistical models have been developed across data types to highlight the possibility of machine learning used throughout the care pathway, from app-based community interventions, electronic health records for patient allocation and through to genetic and brain imaging in secondary and tertiary care.
These approaches are coming closer and closer to real world translation and clinical implementation, however significant challenges will be raised. These include the standards of statistical models, replicability and reproducibility in real world settings and the infrastructure for practical implementation. There are also clear issues raised when potentially giving model based prognoses in psychiatry, the right ‘not to know’, when to use data science and how such models may impact resource usage.
The aim of a special issue is to collate the highest quality evidence, across all diagnoses and treatment modalities, in the field of precision medicine in psychiatry. We hope to discuss current challenges and also provide evidence to allow clinicians to begin to become familiar with the information needed to appraise the quality of evidence, and clinical implications that are increasingly presented in research literature.
Suggested scope and topics:
Prediction modelling, Machine learning, Multimodal data fusion, Data driven clustering vs diagnostics, Development and trials of precision treatments.
We would welcome papers across the lifespan from the arena of youth mental health to dementia, and across multiple data modalities including symptoms, neuroimaging, proteomics and genomics: with the emphasis on papers close to the challenge of real-world implementation and clinician interaction.
We now invite submissions from all authors describing original research and systematic reviews, along with editorials and analysis pieces. We are particularly interested in research that offers potential for definitive evidence with high standard of methods including robust external validation and/or large samples. To find out more, or to inform us of your intention to submit, please contact bjp@rcpsych.ac.uk.
Why submit?
- Submissions handled and reviewed efficiently by experts in the field
- All papers in themed issue will be free to view for a month
- All authors will have the option to publish their article online shortly after acceptance
- The themed issue is sent in print to 17,000 RCPsych members
- Articles in the previous themed issue were downloaded on average 563 times in 5 months. The total number of downloads for all articles included in the issue is over 10,600.
Guest Editors:
- Professor Rachel Upthegrove, University of Birmingham, UK
- Dr. Dominic Dwyer, University of Munich, Germany
- Dr. Lana Kambeitz-Ilankovic, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy University of Cologne
- Dr. Rajeev Krishnadas, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, UK