Participants and setting
psychotic depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, non-affective psychotic disorder
RECRUITMENT
Participants were recruited from community mental health services and primary care practices across four different areas of London between 2016 and 2017. Participants from primary care settings were not included in the current analysis, as the final trial only recruited from specialist mental health services.Eligibility criteria for the acceptability study were designed to be as close as possible to those envisaged for the trial. Thus participants had to: (1) have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder or other non-affective psychotic disorder (i.e. excluding bipolar disorder and psychotic depression); (2) have a history of more than one episode, or a single episode that lasted more than a year, (3) been taking antipsychotics; (4) been stable for a period of at least three months (e.g. not requiring acute care by a crisis team or in an inpatient unit). Exclusion criteria were: (1) lacking of capacity to consent to the research; (2) being legally compelled to take antipsychotic medication; (3) having the potential to present a serious risk of harm to self or others in the view of a treating clinician; (4) requiring an English language interpreter. The eligibility criteria for the subsequent RADAR trial were the same except that the minimum period of clinical stability required prior to recruitment was reduced to one month, and an additional exclusion criterion specified that individuals could not take part if they were pregnant or breast-feeding.Clinicians were asked to identify patients on their caseload who might meet the eligibility criteria. They explained the study to patients with the support of an information leaflet. Those who agreed were contacted by the research team to arrange a face-to-face interview at a convenient location. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the interview. Participants were reimbursed for their time and travel.