News Archive

News Archive


DIAMONDS Dissemination Event Update and Presentations

We held our first dissemination event on 5th December 2016 in Bradford. The aim of the event was to share news about the projects

we are working on and to learn about other research happening in the region to improve the physical health of people living with

severe mental illness.



The event was attended by around 70 people, including service users and carers, healthcare staff and commissioners, and

researchers working in this area. As well as hearing about the DIAMONDS projects, we heard more about the STEPWISE trial

(a structured lifestyle intervention for people with schizophrenia) and the SCIMITAR trial (a bespoke smoking cessation service for

people living with severe mental illness). We also heard from Dr David Shiers, who shared his experience as an expert carer, and

from Professor Tim Doran who talked about the links between severe mental illness and poor physical health.


Presentations from the event are available at the following link.






DIAMONDS Newsletter Issue 3 (May 2016)

Click here to access our latest newsletter.

If you want to join our stakeholder group and receive updates by email please contact sue.bellass@york.ac.uk



DIAMONDS Dissemination Event

Monday 5th December 2016, 9:30am to 3:30pm

Bradford City Football Club

The DIAMONDS research team is hosting a dissemination event to share and exchange knowledge about:
1) the relationship between diabetes and severe mental illness
2) interventions and services to help tackle diabetes and physical health inequalities in this population
3) other research being carried out in this area.

There will be presentations from members of the research team including Dr Najma Siddiqi, Dr Jo Taylor, Professor Richard Holt, Professor Tim Doran, and Robert Smith, and from other experts in the field.


If you want to know more or would like to present at our event, please contact jo.taylor@york.ac.uk





DIAMONDS Newsletter Issue 2 (Dec 2015)

Click here to access our latest newsletter.

If you want to join our stakeholder group and receive updates by email please contact jo.taylor@york.ac.uk




DIAMONDS awarded NIHR programme development grant (Nov 2015)

The DIAMONDS research group has been awarded funding for a 12 month study in preparation for a programme of research that will develop and evaluate a tailored diabetes self-management education (DSME) intervention for people with co-existing severe mental illness (SMI) and diabetes. Starting in February 2016, the study has the following objectives:
  • develop a core outcome set indicative of successful diabetes self-management, that are acceptable and capture important domains in people with co-existing SMI and diabetes (in line with the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative)
  • identify elements of generic DSME programmes that could be used as a basis for developing a bespoke intervention for people with SMI, and agree the control condition for a future definitive trial
  • to strengthen research team working, build PPI panel capacity, and develop wider collaborations to effectively deliver the research programme.
To do this, we will run three workshops (in Mar, Jul, Oct 2016) and use online survey methods to engage with service users, carers, healthcare professionals and the research group. If you would like to be part of this work, please contact jo.taylor@york.ac.uk 

We are also holding a final dissemination event on 5th December 2016 in Leeds, to share findings from the study and enable others in the group and our wider network to present their research in this area. More information about this event will be provided in the New Year.




Welcome to Rob, our new research fellow (Jul 2015)

Robert Smith, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Keele, joined the DIAMONDS research group in July 2015.
Rob will start to interrogate patient-level data to understand more about the characteristics of patients with severe mental illness
and diabetes, and the care they receive. Rob will also assist with the on-going systematic review and other DIAMONDS projects.
Rob is based in the Mental Health and Addiction Research Group at the University of York.



Lancet Psychiatry publishes special edition on diabetes and psychosis (Apr 2015)

Lancet Psychiatry have published a series of three articles about the relationship between diabetes and psychosis.
In the first article, Ward and Druss review what is known about the prevalence and impact of diabetes in people with psychosis. Henderson and colleagues then present in more detail the range of factors that increase the risk of developing diabetes in this population. And in the final article, Chwastiak and others discuss the clinical management of comorbid diabetes and psychotic disorders, drawing attention to the importance of greater collaboration between primary and mental health care for these patients.

Please click on the link below to access the articles:
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