Bookmarks
Deriving depression and treatment response phenotypes in electronic health records
Safe People
Organisation name
University of Edinburgh
Applicant name(s)
Matthew Iveson
Funders/ Sponsors
Wellcome Trust Moray Endowment Fund Carnegie Trust
Safe Projects
Project ID
DL_2023_066
Lay summary
Using health data that is collected when someone interacts with clinical services can help researchers to better understand depression and its treatment. Most people who are diagnosed with depression are diagnosed by their GP, yet GP data are not readily available for research use across Scotland. We will use DataLoch data to study depression and its treatment across multiple sources of health data. This will include hospital data, data about prescription medications, and importantly GP records. The outputs of the project will be academic papers, as well as data tools (analysis scripts and phenotype definitions) that will be both returned to DataLoch and deposited in open science communities (e.g., HDR UK Phenotype library) to benefit future researchers. This study will result in a better understanding of how depression and its treatment are reflected in electronic health records, including better methods for identifying and treating those with depression.
Public benefit statement
In 2022-2023, approximately 1 in 6 adults in Great Britain suffered from moderate-to-severe depression (ONS). Furthermore, many do not respond to antidepressants or take time to find a treatment that works. Use of health data recorded during real-world patient journeys provides valuable insight into how symptoms and response to treatments vary between individuals. By using routinely collected health data we can help to improve our understanding of depression and treatment response, and to improve personalised medicine, risk prediction, and the management of adverse responses. This research will feed into a wider project that aims to improve the lives of individuals living with depression through drug discovery, drug repurposing and tailoring prescribing policy. Our research is conducted in collaboration with a panel of individuals with lived experience of depression. Furthermore, an in-person meeting with various stakeholders (GPs, Researchers, Patients, Public Health Scotland and DataLoch) highlighted the importance of GP data in combination with other health records (see appendix for infographic).
Request category type
Public Health Research
Other approval committees
Latest approval date
11/10/2024
Safe Data
Dataset(s) name
Data sensitivity level
De-Personalised
Safe Setting
Access type
TRE