Jan Stochl

Jan Stochl
University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Psychiatry

doc., PhDr., M.Phil., Ph.D.

About

180
Publications
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Publications

Publications (180)
Article
Background The increasing prevalence of mental health disorders among adolescents highlights the importance of early identification and intervention. Artemis-A is a web-based application of computerised adaptive testing (CAT), originally developed for secondary schools, to quickly and efficiently assess students’ mental health. Due to its speed, re...
Preprint
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Introduction Socioeconomic position has been strongly associated with cardiovascular health. However, little is known about the short-term health impacts of socioeconomic exposures during early adulthood. In this study we describe distinct socioeconomic trajectories of early adulthood (age 16-24y), and assess associations of these trajectories with...
Preprint
Background: Lockdowns and social isolation can have a considerable effect on the mental health of college students. We therefore set out to better understand what factors had an influence on student’s mental health during the COVID-19-pandemic. Specifically, we aimed to 1) identify sociodemographic characteristics that put students at an increased...
Article
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Background: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services address anxiety and depression in primary care, with psychotic disorders typically excluded. Our previous research found 1 in 4 patients report distressing psychotic experiences (PE) alongside common mental disorders, yet little is known about their clinical presentation and im...
Article
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Objective Increasing numbers of young people attending university has raised concerns about the capacity of student mental health services to support them. We conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to explore whether provision of an 8 week mindfulness course adapted for university students (Mindfulness Skills for Students—MSS), compared with...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services address anxiety and depression in primary care, but psychotic disorders are typically excluded. Our previous research found that 1 in 4 patients report distressing psychotic experiences (PE) alongside common mental disorders, yet little is known about their clinical presentatio...
Article
Full-text available
Background Genomic conditions can be associated with developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and physical and mental health symptoms. They are individually rare and highly variable in presentation, which limits the use of standard clinical guidelines for diagnosis and treatment. A simple screening tool to identify yo...
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Background Cardiometabolic dysfunction is common in young people with psychosis. Recently, the Psychosis Metabolic Risk Calculator (PsyMetRiC) was developed and externally validated in the UK, predicting up-to six-year risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) from routinely collected data. The full-model includes age, sex, ethnicity, body-mass index, smok...
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Few studies assessing the effects of COVID-19 on mental health include prospective markers of risk and resilience necessary to understand and mitigate the combined impacts of the pandemic, lockdowns, and other societal responses. This population-based study of young adults includes individuals from the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (n = 2403)...
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IntroductionThe comorbidity between cardiometabolic and psychotic disorders develops early. This is a crucial window of opportunity to reduce excess morbidity and mortality. Recently, a cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm for young people with psychosis, the psychosis metabolic risk calculator (PsyMetRiC) was developed and externally validate...
Article
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Introduction: At least one in four people treated by the primary care improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT) programme in England experiences distressing psychotic experiences (PE) in addition to common mental disorder (CMD). These individuals are less likely to achieve recovery. IAPT services do not routinely screen for nor offer spec...
Article
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In psychiatry, severity of mental health conditions and their change over time are usually measured via sum scores of items on psychometric scales. However, inferences from such scores can be biased if psychometric properties such as unidimensionality and temporal measurement invariance for instruments are not met. Here, we aimed to evaluate these...
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Drugs of abuse are widely known to worsen mental health problems, but this relationship may not be a simple causational one. Whether or not a person is susceptible to the negative effects of drugs of abuse may not only be determined by their addictive properties, but also the users’ chronotype, which determines their daily activity patterns. The pr...
Article
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Background Secondary schools are an ideal setting to identify young people experiencing mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression. However, current methods of identification rely on cumbersome paper-based assessments, which are lengthy and time-consuming to complete and resource-intensive for schools to manage. Artemis-A is a prototy...
Article
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Characterizing patterns of mental phenomena in epidemiological studies of adolescents can provide insight into the latent organization of psychiatric disorders. This avoids the biases of chronicity and selection inherent in clinical samples, guides models of shared aetiology within psychiatric disorders and informs the development and implementatio...
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The aim was to compare the short and long-term effects of subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) on gait dysfunction and other cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Two groups of patients were studied. The first group (short-term DBS, n = 8) included patients recently implanted with STN DBS (mean time since DBS 15.8 months,...
Poster
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a palpable rise in mental health conditions, including greater anxiety, depression and stress. There have been many suggested driving factors for this rise, from unemployment to exposure to negative news. However, during the pandemic there have been both a rise in drug consumption and a shift to a later chronotype....
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Full-text available
Background Knowledge of mental distress and resilience factors over the time span from before to after a stressor is important to be able to leverage the most promising resilience factors and promote mental health at the right time. To shed light on this topic, we designed the RESIST (Resilience Study) study, in which we assessed medical students b...
Article
Full-text available
Background Young people with psychosis are at high risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders; however, there is no suitable cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm for this group. We aimed to develop and externally validate a cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm for young people with psychosis. Methods We developed the Psychosis Metaboli...
Preprint
Full-text available
BACKGROUND Secondary schools are an ideal setting to identify young people experiencing mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression. However, current methods of identification rely on cumbersome paper-based assessments, which are lengthy and time-consuming to complete and resource-intensive for schools to manage. Artemis-A is a prototy...
Article
Full-text available
Meta-analyses of cross-sectional studies suggest that patients with psychosis have higher circulating levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) compared with healthy controls; however, cause and effect is unclear. We examined the prospective association between CRP levels and subsequent risk of developing a psychotic disorder by conducting a systematic re...
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Background Despite evidence for the general effectiveness of psychological therapies, there exists substantial heterogeneity in patient outcomes. We aimed to identify factors associated with baseline severity of depression and anxiety symptoms, rate of symptomatic change over the course of therapy, and symptomatic recovery in a primary mental healt...
Article
Background About every fourth patient with major depressive disorder (MDD) shows evidence of systemic inflammation. Previous studies have shown inflammation-depression associations of multiple serum inflammatory markers and multiple specific depressive symptoms. It remains unclear, however, if these associations extend to genetic/lifetime predispos...
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Importance Cardiometabolic disorders often occur concomitantly with psychosis and depression, contribute to high mortality rates, and are detectable from the onset of the psychiatric disorders. However, it is unclear whether longitudinal trends in cardiometabolic traits from childhood are associated with risks for adult psychosis and depression. O...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background About every fourth patient with major depressive disorder (MDD) shows evidence of systemic inflammation. Previous studies have shown inflammation-depression associations of multiple serum inflammatory markers and multiple specific depressive symptoms. It remains unclear, however, if these associations extend to genetic/lifetime predispos...
Article
Full-text available
Background Schizophrenia is associated with elevated levels of circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) and other inflammatory markers, but it is unclear whether these associations extend to psychotic symptoms occurring in adolescence in the general population. A symptom-based approach may provide important clues for apparent trans-diagnostic effect of...
Article
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Body-focused repetitive behavior disorders (BFRBs) include Trichotillomania (TTM; Hair pulling disorder) and Excoriation (Skin Picking) Disorder (SPD). These conditions are prevalent, highly heterogeneous, under-researched, and under-treated. In order for progress to be made in optimally classifying and treating these conditions, it is necessary to...
Article
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Background Psychotic experiences may emerge in more severe cases of common mental disorders (CMD). Previous work identified that 30% of patients treated by mental health services in primary healthcare, specifically the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in England, reported psychotic experiences, began treatment with more...
Preprint
Objective: More than one in three people worldwide are exposed to some form of childhood adversity (CA). CA is strongly associated with an increased risk for the development of mental health problems. Resilience factors (RFs), such as self-esteem, are known to reduce such vulnerability to mental health problems. Here we examine besides direct RF ef...
Article
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Background: There is concern that increasing demand for student mental health services reflects deteriorating student well-being. We designed a pragmatic, parallel, single-blinded randomised controlled trial hypothesising that providing mindfulness courses to university students would promote their resilience to stress up to a year later. Here we...
Article
Full-text available
One-in-two people suffering from mental health problems develop such distress before or during adolescence. Research has shown that distress can predict itself well over time. Yet, little is known about how well resilience factors (RFs), i.e. those factors that decrease mental health problems, predict subsequent distress. Therefore, we investigated...
Article
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Regular drug use can lead to addiction, but not everyone who takes drugs makes this transition. How exactly drugs of abuse interact with individual vulnerability is not fully understood, nor is it clear how individuals defy the risks associated with drugs or addiction vulnerability. We used resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) in 162 participants to...
Article
Objective We aimed to evaluate the validity of a MARSIPAN‐guidance‐adapted Early Warning System (MARSI MEWS) and compare it to the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and an adapted version of the Physical Risk in Eating Disorders Index (PREDIX), to ascertain whether current practice is comparable to best‐practice standards. Methods We collated 3,...
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Objective Many people with psychotic experiences do not develop psychotic disorders, yet those who seek help demonstrate high clinical complexity and poor outcomes. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we evaluated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of psychological interventions for people with psychotic experiences. Method We searc...
Article
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Background Systematic reviews indicate that approximately one third of people with at-risk mental states for psychosis (ARMS) will transition to a psychotic disorder. Research in non-specialised services, such as primary care settings, has shown that far fewer make such a conversion. Nonetheless, psychotic experiences (PE) may also be linked to com...
Preprint
Background: Resilience factors, such as self-esteem or social support, are known to reduce mental distress in the face of stress or adversity exposure. So far, knowledge on the promotive value of resilience factors over the time span from before to during and after the stress or adversity exposure is concerningly scarce. Such knowledge seems howeve...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Knowledge of mental distress and resilience factors over the time span from before to after a stressor is important to be able to leverage the most promising resilience factors and promote mental health at the right time. To shed light on this topic, we designed the RESIST (Resilience Study) study, in which we assessed medical students b...
Article
Background : Psychotic experiences (PE) may co-occur with common mental disorders (CMD), such as depression and anxiety. However, we know very little about the prevalence of and recovery from PE in primary mental health care settings, such as the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services in the UK National Health Service (NHS), wh...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives To inform suicide prevention policies and responses to youths at risk by investigating whether suicide risk is predicted by a summary measure of common mental distress (CMD (the p factor)) as well as by conventional psychopathological domains; to define the distribution of suicide risks over the population range of CMD; to test whether s...
Preprint
Objectives: To inform suicide prevention policies and responses to youths at risk by investigating whether suicide risk is predicted by a summary measure of common mental distress (CMD, (the p-factor)) as well as by conventional psychopathological domains; to define the distribution of suicide risks over the population range of CMD; to test whether...
Article
Full-text available
Psychological distress persisting for weeks or more promotes pro-inflammatory immune dysregulation, a risk factor for a range of chronic diseases. We have recently shown that mindfulness training reduces distress among university students. Here we present an exploratory trial to study immune dysregulation in a cohort of students who were exposed to...
Preprint
Full-text available
One-in-two people suffering from mental health problems develop such distress before or during adolescence. Resilience factors (RFs) decrease mental health problems. However, little is known about which RFs are the best indicators for subsequent distress, and with what accuracy RFs predict subsequent distress. We examined ten RFs and distress in 11...
Article
Psychotic experiences (PE) co-occur with depression and anxiety, and indicate severity of general mental distress. Identifying PE in primary care mental health settings may facilitate access to evidence-based interventions. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences - Positive 15-items Scale (CAPE-P15) has shown promise in detecting those at u...
Article
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Background: Childhood adversity (CA) is strongly associated with mental health problems. Resilience factors (RFs) reduce mental health problems following CA. Yet, knowledge on the nature of RFs is scarce. Therefore, we examined RF mean levels, RF interrelations, RF-distress pathways, and their changes between early (age 14) and later adolescence (...
Article
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Habits may develop when meaningful action patterns are frequently repeated in a stable environment. We measured the differing tendencies of people to form habits in a population sample of n = 533 using the Creature of Habit Scale (COHS). We confirmed the high reliability of the two latent factors measured by the COHS, automaticity and routines. Whi...
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Objective: While many individuals gamble responsibly, some develop maladaptive symptoms of a gambling disorder. Gambling problems often first occur in young people, yet little is known about the longitudinal course of such symptoms and whether this course can be predicted. The aim of this study was to identify latent subtypes of disordered gamblin...
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Background: Meta-analyses confirm increased circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in depression. Longitudinal studies have linked one-off measurements of CRP at baseline with increased risk of developing depressive symptoms subsequently at follow-up, but studies with repeat CRP measures from the same individuals are scarce. Methods: We hav...
Article
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Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services have been youth-focused since their inception. In England, recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and new National Health Service (NHS) Standards for EIP recommend the expansion of the age acceptability criterion from 14–35 to 14–65. In the Cambridgeshire and Peterbo...
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Background Many people who have common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, also have some psychotic experiences. These experiences are associated with higher clinical complexity, poor treatment response, and negative clinical outcomes. Psychological interventions have the potential to improve outcomes for people with psychotic experie...
Article
Background Importance: Associations between childhood infection, IQ and adult non-affective psychosis (NAP) are well established. However, examination of sensitive periods for exposure, effect of familial confounding, and whether IQ provides a link between childhood infection and adult NAP may elucidate pathogenesis of psychosis further. Objective:...
Article
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We investigated relationships between early developmental milestones, schizophrenia incidence and variability in its age at onset. We hypothesized that the period of risk for schizophrenia would be longer for those with later development. The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 was followed until 47 years of age, and those members diagnosed with sch...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Childhood adversity (CA), such as trauma or long-lasting stress, is strongly associated with mental health problems. Resilience factors (RFs) reduce the liability for mental health problems subsequent to CA. As mental health levels change over time, RFs may also change. Yet, knowledge on the latter is scarce. Therefore, we examined whet...
Poster
Introduction: Longitudinal studies have linked increased levels of the systemic inflammatory markers interleukin 6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in infancy with the risk of developing depression and psychotic symptoms later on in life [1]. It is also known that higher IL-6 levels in childhood are associated with subsequent persistent depressi...
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Background Many children and young people experiencing mental health difficulties (MHD) do not access care, often due to inadequate identification. Schools have a unique potential to improve early identification; however, evidence is limited regarding the acceptability of school-based identification programmes. This study aimed to examine parents’...
Article
Full-text available
Background An increasing importance is being placed on mental health and wellbeing at individual and population levels. While there are several interventions that have been proposed to improve wellbeing, more evidence is needed to understand which aspects of wellbeing are most influential. This study aimed to identify key items that signal improvem...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Low-grade inflammation is associated with depression, but studies of specific symptoms are relatively scarce. Association between inflammatory markers and specific symptoms may provide insights into potential mechanism of inflammation-related depression. Using longitudinal data, we have tested whether childhood serum interleukin 6 (IL-...