Background
affective disorders, mental illness, primary psychotic disorders, SMI, schizophrenia
RECRUITMENT
People with a severe mental illness (SMI), defined as schizophrenia, other primary psychotic disorders, and severe affective disorders, have a marked reduction in life expectancy [During a 2-year participatory co-design process, we developed the SOFIA coordinated care program that attempts to align the health care provision in primary care with the needs and preferences of people with SMI [To clarify the terminology used in this work, we refer to the intervention and its components as the ‘SOFIA program’ or ‘the coordinated care program’ and the research activities performed to develop, evaluate, and assess the program (e.g., the feasibility and pilot study) as ‘the SOFIA study’. The SOFIA program aims to lower mortality and improve the quality of life in patients with SMI. The SOFIA study aims to evaluate whether the coordinated care program is successful in reducing excess mortality and increasing the quality of life in patients with severe mental illness, as well as assessing the implementation in the context of general practice. The goal of the SOFIA pilot study is to investigate the implementation and feasibility of introducing the coordinated care program into the context of general practice which will be addressed in a series of publications. The current paper aims to address:
The feasibility of the design in terms of recruitment of practices and patients, and the retention of practices and patients.The fidelity with which GPs delivered the extended consultation.The feasibility of collecting outcome measures (response rates on MMQ and EQ-5D-5L questionnaires); and thereby obtaining preliminary data to inform the required sample size for a subsequent, large-scale efficacy trial.Information on selected aspects of the program theory relating to the extended consultations and the educational component.Questions assessing the benefits and potential disadvantages regarding the chosen recruitment strategy and the use of the MMQ questionnaire as an intervention tool and outcome measure will be elaborated in upcoming publications.