A recent study has revealed a clue for identifying individuals at risk of developing psychotic disorders or bipolar disorder.
Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder are serious mental illnesses that often begin in adolescence or early adulthood.
Early detection is critical because timely support can prevent the onset of the disease and improve long-term outcomes.
Until now, doctors have faced challenges in predicting who might develop these conditions, relying on fragmented assessment tools that focused on one disorder at a time.
The research, led by experts from the University of Oxford and King’s College London and supported by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Center (OH BRC) and published in The Lancet Psychiatry introduces a clinical prediction model that could transform early intervention in mental health care.
This new model takes a transdiagnostic approach, meaning it predicts the risk of both psychosis and bipolar disorder together.
By analyzing routinely collected health data, the model provides physicians with an evidence-based tool to identify high-risk individuals earlier and more accurately.
This study is one of the largest of its kind, having analyzed anonymised electronic medical records from thousands of patients across multiple UK locations.
The model showed strong predictive accuracy and outperformed existing single-disorder tools.
It also uses data already available in healthcare systems, such as previous mental health consultations and demographic information, making it practical for real-world clinical use.
