Naomi Wilson
As I have progressed into my current role as a registrar in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, I have developed a research interest in the mental and physical health inequalities which emerge in childhood. During my fellowship at the University of Glasgow I am therefore delighted to be investigating the long-term physical health outcomes of childhood mental health difficulties and the factors which account for the varying trajectories these can take across a child’s life.
I undertook my undergraduate medical training at the University of Dundee where my interest in clinical academia began during an intercalated degree in Medical Psychology. Upon obtaining my medical degree with distinction, I therefore elected to complete an MSc in Global Mental Health during my foundation training. For my master’s thesis, I designed and led a mixed-methods study of resilience and psychosomatic complaints amongst refugee children in Palestine and was honoured to receive the Liz Campbell Memorial Prize in recognition of this work.
During my core psychiatry training, I continued to pursue these research interests through conducting and publishing several further research projects within an honorary clinical lecturer role. These included projects exploring the epigenetic sequalae of childhood maltreatment; the association between staff burnout and empathy toward varying psychiatric diagnoses; and the co-production of an interview tool for use with looked after children. Subsequently, upon completing my core training and alongside clinical work, I secured a position as senior policy researcher at the Mental Health Foundation for Scotland, in addition to the position of Project Manager for a feasibility randomised controlled trial of an early intervention for borderline-personality-disorder at the University of Glasgow. Through my involvement in these projects, I have gained invaluable experience in a range of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, as well as project management, presenting to policymakers, and working in partnership with experts by experience. More recently, during my higher specialist training, I secured a SCREDS Clinical Lectureship post in Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the University of Glasgow, allowing me to continue expanding upon my research skills and experience alongside my clinical training.
I am excited to begin my Multimorbidity PhD Fellowship which will be supervised by Professor Helen Minnis, Dr Ruchika Gajwani, and Dr Michael Fleming. This data-driven project will utilise several large-scale longitudinal cohort studies to explore the potential association between having isolated or multiple psychiatric diagnoses in childhood and an increased risk of multimorbidity in adulthood. We also intend to investigate factors across the life course which both strengthen and reduce this association, including experiences of childhood maltreatment, abuse, and neglect. Finally, we plan to conduct some qualitative research amongst young people with lived experience of these challenges to better understand their experiences of accessing healthcare services which might reduce their multimorbidity risk.
Childhood mental health difficulties are increasingly recognised as a growing global health challenge and improving our understanding of the role these difficulties play in determining adult health is therefore of vital importance. Securing this fellowship has offered me the dedicated time needed to hone my research skills further, whilst also contributing to this fascinating area of work, with the aim of becoming a clinical academic with expertise in this field.
Project: Childhood neurodevelopmental multimorbidity and chronic physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood
Primary Supervisor: Prof Helen Minnis (University of Glasgow)
Secondary Supervisors: Dr Ruchika Gajwani and Dr Michael Fleming (University of Glasgow)
