Supporting Physical Activity through Co-production in people with Severe Mental Illness (SPACES)

Lauren WALKER^1,2, Steve GILLARD¹, Jerry PADFIELD¹, Emily PECKHAM², Jacqueline SIN¹

¹City, University of London, London, United Kingdom
²Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom

Introduction

People living with severe mental illness (SMI) experience a mortality gap of 20-25 years. One of the main reasons for this is due to preventable physical health conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Increasing physical activity can improve physical health in all sectors of the population including people with SMI. Therefore, supporting people with SMI to increase their levels of physical activity could help to reduce the mortality gap people with SMI currently experience. The SPACES study was set up to co-produce a physical activity intervention that meets the needs of people with SMI.

Methods

We held a series of workshops with NHS health professionals, people with lived experience of SMI, carers, and clinicians to collaboratively work to design the SPACES intervention using information gathered from systematic reviews, multi-stakeholder focus groups and a survey of people’s physical activity preferences. The co-production process was supported by the SPACES Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement group.

Results

The intervention that we co-produced has two overarching components, one-to-one verbal support and physical activity sessions. In the one-to-one verbal support, participants are supported to explore how they can build physical activity into their daily lives. The physical activity sessions consist of weekly two-hour group-based physical activity sessions delivered over 18 weeks. The physical activity session is divided into three components: a physical activity component (up to 60 minutes), an education component (up to 30 minutes) and social time (up to 30minutes).

Discussion-conclusion

The intervention has been tested in a feasibility study involving 71 participants across NHS sites in the UK. Feedback from participants who received the intervention, and from people who delivered the intervention, indicated that the intervention is acceptable and feasible to deliver. The next step is to test the intervention in a full scale RCT.