Peter B Jones

Peter B Jones
University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Psychiatry

Doctor of Philosophy

About

1,338
Publications
260,617
Reads
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71,023
Citations
Additional affiliations
September 2000 - present
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
Position
  • Honorary consultant psychiatrist

Publications

Publications (1,338)
Article
Full-text available
Background Previous studies identified clusters of first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients based on cognition and premorbid adjustment. This study examined a range of socio-environmental risk factors associated with clusters of FEP, aiming a) to compare clusters of FEP and community controls using the Maudsley Environmental Risk Score for psychosis...
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...
Article
Full-text available
Making informed clinical decisions based on individualised outcome predictions is the cornerstone of precision psychiatry. Prediction models currently employed in psychiatry rely on algorithms that map a statistical relationship between clinical features (predictors/risk factors) and subsequent clinical outcomes. They rely on associations that over...
Article
Full-text available
Adolescence and young adulthood are sensitive developmental periods to environmental influences. Investigating pre-emptive measures against stressors, such as those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, on mental health is crucial. We aimed to synthesize evidence on pre-pandemic resilience factors shaping youth mental health outcomes during this p...
Article
Background Multiple genetic and environmental risk factors play a role in the development of both schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and affective psychoses. How they act in combination is yet to be clarified. Methods We analyzed 573 first episode psychosis cases and 1005 controls, of European ancestry. Firstly, we tested whether the association of...
Article
Full-text available
Background The association between cannabis and psychosis is established, but the role of underlying genetics is unclear. We used data from the EU-GEI case-control study and UK Biobank to examine the independent and combined effect of heavy cannabis use and schizophrenia polygenic risk score (PRS) on risk for psychosis. Methods Genome-wide associa...
Article
Full-text available
Background Cannabis use and familial vulnerability to psychosis have been associated with social cognition deficits. This study examined the potential relationship between cannabis use and cognitive biases underlying social cognition and functioning in patients with first episode psychosis (FEP), their siblings, and controls. Methods We analyzed a...
Article
Full-text available
Background Urbanicity is a well‐established risk factor for psychosis. Our recent multi‐national study found an association between urbanicity and clinical psychosis in Northern Europe but not in Southern Europe. In this study, we hypothesized that the effect of current urbanicity on variation of schizotypy would be greater in North‐western Europe...
Article
Full-text available
Childhood adversity is associated with various clinical dimensions in psychosis; however, how genetic vulnerability shapes the adversity-associated psychopathological signature is yet to be studied. We studied data of 583 First Episode Psychosis (FEP) cases from the EU-GEI FEP case-control study, including Polygenic risk scores for major depressive...
Article
Full-text available
The rising prevalence and legalisation of cannabis worldwide have underscored the need for a comprehensive understanding of its biological impact, particularly on mental health. Epigenetic mechanisms, specifically DNA methylation, have gained increasing recognition as vital factors in the interplay between risk factors and mental health. This study...
Article
Full-text available
Several studies have highlighted increased psychosis risk in migrant and minority ethnic populations. Migration before age 18 appears to increase risk, but further evidence is required. We investigated this issue in a European case-control study. We hypothesized that migration during two key socio-developmental periods, childhood and adolescence, w...
Conference Paper
The interdisciplinary nature of Child-Robot Interaction (CRI) fosters incorporating measures and methodologies from many established domains. However, when employing CRI approaches to sensitive avenues of health and wellbeing, caution is critical in adapting metrics to retain their safety standards and ensure accurate utilisation. We conducted a se...
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
Full-text available
Background It remains unknown whether severe mental disorders contribute to fatally harmful effects of physical illness. Aims To investigate the risk of all-cause death and loss of life-years following the onset of a wide range of physical health conditions in people with severe mental disorders compared with matched counterparts who had only thes...
Article
Full-text available
Background Involving the public in evidence synthesis research is challenging due to the highly analytic nature of the projects, so it is important that involvement processes are documented, reflected upon, and shared to devise best practices. There is a literature gap on the involvement of the public in individual participant data meta-analyses, p...
Article
Full-text available
Background A clinical tool to estimate the risk of treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) in people with first-episode psychosis (FEP) would inform early detection of TRS and overcome the delay of up to 5 years in starting TRS medication. Aims To develop and evaluate a model that could predict the risk of TRS in routine clinical practice. Method...
Article
Full-text available
We used a probabilistic reversal learning task to examine prediction error-driven belief updating in three clinical groups with psychosis or psychosis-like symptoms. Study 1 compared people with at-risk mental state and first episode psychosis (FEP) to matched controls. Study 2 compared people diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS)...
Article
Full-text available
Background Mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) have shown beneficial effects on mental health. There is emerging evidence that MBPs may also be associated with marked deviations in the subjective experience of waking consciousness. We aimed to explore whether MBPs can have a causal role in different types of such states. Methods We conducted a pra...
Article
Full-text available
Childhood-onset type 1 diabetes (T1D) is associated with substantial psychiatric morbidity in later life, but it remains unknown whether these associations are due to common underlying biological mechanisms or the impacts of living with the condition and its treatment. Here, using Czech national register data, we identified children with T1D aged ≤...
Article
Full-text available
Background Evidence suggests reduced survival rates following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in people with preexisting mental disorders, especially psychotic disorders, before the broad introduction of vaccines. It remains unknown whether this elevated mortality risk persisted at later phases of the pandemic...
Article
Friendships increase mental wellbeing and resilient functioning in young people with childhood adversity (CA). However, the mechanisms of this relationship are unknown. We examined the relationship between perceived friendship quality at age 14 after the experience of CA and reduced affective and neural responses to social exclusion at age 24. Resi...
Article
Full-text available
According to the World Health Organization, the early identification of mental wellbeing issues in children is extremely important for children’s growth and development. However, the available health services are not sufficient to address children’s needs in this area. Literature suggests that robots can provide the support needed to promote mental...
Article
Full-text available
Bifactor models are increasingly being utilized to study latent constructs such as psychopathology and cognition, which change over the lifespan. Although longitudinal measurement invariance (MI) testing helps ensure valid interpretation of change in a construct over time, this is rarely and inconsistently performed in bifactor models. Our review o...
Article
Psychotic experiences (PE) are prevalent in general and clinical populations and can increase the risk for mental disorders in young people. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) is a widely used measure to assess PE in different populations and settings. However, the current knowledge on their overall reliability is limited. We ex...
Article
Full-text available
Background and Hypothesis Recent findings suggest the incidence of first-episode psychotic disorders (FEP) varies according to setting-level deprivation and cannabis use, but these factors have not been investigated together. We hypothesized deprivation would be more strongly associated with variation in FEP incidence than the prevalence of daily o...
Article
Full-text available
Background We examined whether cannabis use contributes to the increased risk of psychotic disorder for non-western minorities in Europe. Methods We used data from the EU-GEI study (collected at sites in Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) on 825 first-episode patients and 1026 controls. We estimated the odds ratio (OR)...
Preprint
Background Several studies have highlighted increased psychosis risk in migrant and minority ethnic populations. Migration before age 18 appears to increase risk, but further evidence is required. We investigated this issue in a European case-control study. We hypothesized that migration during two key socio-developmental periods, childhood and ado...
Article
Full-text available
Background Schools in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are expected to protect and promote pupil mental health. However, many school staff members do not feel confident in identifying and responding to pupil mental health difficulties and report wanting additional training in this area. Objective We aimed to explore the feasibility of Kognito’s At...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background and Hypothesis: Recent findings suggest the incidence of first episode psychotic disorders (FEP) varies according to setting-level deprivation and cannabis use, but these factors have not been investigated together. We hypothesized deprivation would be more strongly associated with variation in FEP incidence than prevalence of daily or h...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Adolescence and young adulthood are sensitive developmental periods to environmental influences. Investigating pre-emptive measures against stressors, such as those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, on mental health and wellbeing is crucial. We aimed to synthesise evidence on pre-pandemic resilience factors shaping youth mental hea...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Initial discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic often overlooked its impact on young adults. By employing a qualitative approach nested within an ongoing general population cohort study, we seek to fill a gap in the literature by providing insights into the longer-term impact on this demographic. Methods Data collection involved the use of...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Childhood adversity is associated with various clinical dimensions in psychosis; however, how genetic vulnerability shapes the adversity associated psychopathological signature is yet to be clarified. Methods Using data from the EU-GEI study, in 376 First Episode Psychosis (FEP) cases, we evaluated the interaction between polygenic risk...
Article
Full-text available
Background Incidence of first-episode psychosis (FEP) varies substantially across geographic regions. Phenotypes of subclinical psychosis (SP), such as psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and schizotypy, present several similarities with psychosis. We aimed to examine whether SP measures varied across different sites and whether this variation was co...
Article
Full-text available
Aims Children and adolescents with a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are more likely than their peers to develop mental health difficulties, but not enough is known about their help-seeking behaviours and preferences. We aimed to determine whether ACEs are associated with access to and perceived unmet need for mental health services...
Article
Full-text available
People exposed to more unfavourable social circumstances are more vulnerable to poor mental health over their life course, in ways that are often determined by structural factors which generate and perpetuate intergenerational cycles of disadvantage and poor health. Addressing these challenges is an imperative matter of social justice. In this pape...
Article
Full-text available
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
Full-text available
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...
Chapter
Cambridge Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists is a 'one stop shop' for what any psychiatrist needs to know about the brain. Understanding the brain and mind requires a vast array of techniques and conceptual approaches. The Editors have assembled a team of basic neuroscientists, geneticists, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, neuros...
Book
Based on the best-selling Stahl's Prescriber's Guide, this essential guide to psychiatric prescribing has been developed by leading psychiatrists and medical students from the University of Cambridge to support all mental health professionals in achieving optimal care for their patients. Written with the authority of evidence and the guidance of cl...
Preprint
Full-text available
Purpose: Initial discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic often overlooked its impact on young adults. Our research aimed to explore how this group experienced the pandemic, and specifically how it affected their mental health, relationships, and careers. Methods: Data collection involved the use of in-depth semi-structured interviews. Using a pre-d...
Preprint
Background: Involving the public in evidence synthesis research is challenging due to the highly analytic nature of the projects, so it is important that involvement processes are documented, reflected upon, and shared to devise best practices. There is a literature gap on the involvement of the public in individual participant data meta-analyses,...
Article
Full-text available
Background Depressive disorder is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide; however its prevalence and association with inequality and crime is poorly characterised in Latin America. This study aimed to: i. systematically review population-based studies of prevalence of ICD/DSM depressive disorder in Latin America, ii. report pooled region...
Article
Full-text available
Attempts to delineate an immune subtype of schizophrenia have not yet led to the clear identification of potential treatment targets. An unbiased informatic approach at the level of individual immune cytokines and symptoms may reveal organisational structures underlying heterogeneity in schizophrenia, and potential for future therapies. The aim was...
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: Hong Kong is among the many populations that has experienced the combined impacts of social unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite concerns about further deteriorations in youth mental health globally, few epidemiological studies have been conducted to examine the prevalence and correlates of major depressive episode (MDE) and other...
Preprint
Full-text available
The rising prevalence and legalization of cannabis worldwide have underscored the need for a comprehensive understanding of its biological impact, particularly on mental health. Epigenetic mechanisms, specifically DNA methylation, have gained increasing recognition as vital factors in the interplay between risk factors and mental health. This study...
Article
Full-text available
A parenting style with high amounts of control combined with low caring or nurturing behaviour has been reported in association with mental disorders including schizophrenia. However, the association of parenting style with illness severity in individuals with schizophrenia has never been evaluated retrospectively or over a longitudinal time course...
Article
Full-text available
Childhood adversity is one of the strongest predictors of adolescent mental illness. Therefore, it is critical that the mechanisms that aid resilient functioning in individuals exposed to childhood adversity are better understood. Here, we examined whether resilient functioning was related to structural brain network topology. We quantified resilie...
Article
Background: Use of illegal stimulants is associated with an increased risk of psychotic disorder. However, the impact of stimulant use on odds of first-episode psychosis (FEP) remains unclear. Here, we aimed to describe the patterns of stimulant use and examine their impact on odds of FEP. Methods: We included patients with FEP aged 18-64 years...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill-health that is becoming the leading global cause of morbidity. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs on psychological distress, and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, e...
Poster
Full-text available
Aims: A bidirectional relationship between sleep and psychosis is established but the perceptions of clinicians about sleep and its treatment in Early Intervention in Psychosis Services (EIS) has only begun to be examined; the perceptions of service users have not been explored. We conducted surveys of clinicians and EIS users in two NHS trusts. Me...
Article
Full-text available
The Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN) 2400 cohort (n = 2403; aged 14–24 years at baseline) was conceived in 2012 to support an accelerated longitudinal design to study the emergence of psychopathology and psychiatric disorders across adolescence and young adulthood. Two new follow-up surveys have been established in response to the COVID-19...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Immune system dysfunction is hypothesised to contribute to structural brain changes through aberrant synaptic pruning in schizophrenia. However, evidence is mixed and there is a lack of evidence of inflammation and its effect on grey matter volume (GMV) in patients. We hypothesised that inflammatory subgroups can be identified and that...
Article
Full-text available
Background The Inner Santiago Health Study (ISHS) aimed to (i) estimate the prevalence of common mental disorders (CMD; i.e. depressive and anxiety disorders) among immigrants of Peruvian origin in Chile; (ii) determine whether such immigrants are at higher risk of CMD when compared with the native-born geographically matched population (i.e. non-i...
Article
Full-text available
This study investigated if the association between childhood maltreatment and cognition among psychosis patients and community controls was partially accounted for by genetic liability for psychosis. Patients with first-episode psychosis (N = 755) and unaffected controls (N = 1219) from the EU-GEI study were assessed for childhood maltreatment, int...
Preprint
Full-text available
Childhood adversity is one of the strongest predictors of adolescent mental illness. Therefore, it is critical that the mechanisms that aid resilient functioning after childhood adversity are better understood. Here, we examined whether resilient functioning was related to structural brain network topology. We quantified resilient functioning at th...
Article
Full-text available
Background Childhood adversity and cannabis use are considered independent risk factors for psychosis, but whether different patterns of cannabis use may be acting as mediator between adversity and psychotic disorders has not yet been explored. The aim of this study is to examine whether cannabis use mediates the relationship between childhood adve...
Article
Full-text available
Background: While cannabis use is a well-established risk factor for psychosis, little is known about any association between reasons for first using cannabis (RFUC) and later patterns of use and risk of psychosis. Methods: We used data from 11 sites of the multicentre European Gene-Environment Interaction (EU-GEI) case-control study. 558 first-...
Article
Full-text available
Abtract Studies conducted in psychotic disorders have shown that DNA-methylation (DNAm) is sensitive to the impact of Childhood Adversity (CA). However, whether it mediates the association between CA and psychosis is yet to be explored. Epigenome wide association studies (EWAS) using the Illumina Infinium-Methylation EPIC array in peripheral blood...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) have shown beneficial mental health effects. There is emerging evidence that MBPs may also be associated with marked deviations in the subjective experience of waking consciousness. We aimed to assess whether MBPs can have a causal role in different types of such states. Methods We conducted a pragmati...
Article
During the last decade, children have shown an increasing need for mental wellbeing interventions due to their anxiety and depression issues, which the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. Socially Assistive Robotics have been shown to have a great potential to support children with mental wellbeing-related issues. However, understanding how robots c...
Article
Full-text available
Background and Hypothesis It is argued that availability of diagnostic models will facilitate a more rapid identification of individuals who are at a higher risk of first episode psychosis (FEP). Therefore, we developed, evaluated, and validated a diagnostic risk estimation model to classify individual with FEP and controls across six countries. S...