Northumbria University researcher (Alyson Dodd) now part of the NCMD collaboration

I joined the Department of Psychology Northumbria University as a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow in January 2017. My research focuses on improving understanding of the psychological factors underlying bipolar disorder (for example, the ways in which people think about and respond to mood), the development and evaluation of psychological therapies for bipolar disorder, and student mental health (particularly mania risk). Over the past 18 months, I have been working hard to develop research and to make links with researchers and clinicians in the region who share an interest in improving treatment for people living with bipolar disorder.

New projects embarked on this past year have included work with the NCMD team to, i) develop a new measure of daily functioning co-produced with young people from the NTW Adolescent Bipolar Service, which will be helpful for testing whether treatments improve outcomes that are important to young people (led by Dr Adi Sharma), and ii) investigating the factors that predict poorer mental health and academic outcomes in university students (with Dr Stuart Watson, Dr Peter Gallagher, Dr Lucy Robinson and led by Dr Sinead Mullally at Newcastle University).

I will also be working with Newcastle University and NTW to look at the pathway for people with bipolar disorder who are referred to NTW, to identify and remove gaps in provisions particularly in relation to evidence-based psychological therapies.