The Personality Disorder Research Unit conducts pioneering research into the aetiology, assessment, prevention and treatment of personality disorder. 

Personality disorder is a common mental health condition affecting up to one in 20 people. People with personality disorder have difficulties in their relationships with others and these difficulties can lead to social exclusion, poor physical and mental health and impaired quality of life. Rates of deliberate self-harm, suicide and alcohol and drug misuse are also higher among people with personality disorder. Some people with personality disorder are impulsive and behave in ways which may harm themselves or others. These difficulties can result in high levels of contact with health and criminal justice services.

Over the last 20 years research on the assessment and treatment of personality disorder has helped support the development of better services for people with these conditions. These include the development of one of the first structured interview schedules for the assessment of personality disorder (the Personality Assessment Schedule, 1979) the first document-derived assessment of personality disorder (PAS-DOC, 2007) and a questionnaire for assessing the severity of personality disorder according to ICD-11 criteria (SAS-PD, 2017). 

Key focus areas

Members of the group are examining the aetiology of personality disorder, including adult-onset personality disorder, and conducting long-term follow-up studies to examine prognosis. Members of the group are also developing and evaluating new psychological and social interventions for people with personality disorder including brief interventions, video feedback for parents and nidotherapy and testing the effects and cost-effectiveness of drug treatments. Research activities are supported by substantial external funding with additional support from Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust and West London Mental Health Trust. 

'Nottingham Study of Neurotic Disorder - 30-year Follow Up' Privacy Notice

Research Study Title: 30-year follow-up of personality and clinical status of patients with anxiety and depression in the Nottingham Study of Neurotic Disorder (ISRCTN 65727743) 

Imperial College Londonis the sponsor for this study based in the United Kingdom. We will be using information from you in order to undertake this study and will act as the data controller for this study. This means that we are responsible for looking after your information and using it properly. Imperial College London will keep identifiable information about you for:

• 3 months after the study has finished in relation to data subject consent forms
• 20 years after the study has completed in relation to anonymised research data

Further information on Imperial College London’s retention periods may be found at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/records-and-archives/public/RetentionSchedule.pdf.

 A link to Imperial College London’s data protection webpage may be found at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/legal-services-office/data-protection/ but this is the notice most applicable to the information provided by participants and therefore takes precedence for all purposes described hereunder.

YOUR RIGHTS

 Your usual statutory rights to access, change or move your information are limited, because of exceptions applicable to some types of research, and also because we need to manage your information in specific, lawful ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible.

PURPOSE OF PROCESSING

 The Nottingham Study researcher (Dr Helen Tyrer) will collect information from you for this research study in accordance with our instructions.  You do not have to take part in the study and can opt out if you wish. No information will be obtained without your signed consent (according to Article 6 of the latest data protection act (GDPR)), and you can withdraw this consent at any time. You can also ask for your records to be eroded of you so wish. If you do consent there will be face-to-face interview carried out with Dr Helen Tyrer with you; no other records will be assessed. The Data Controller representative is Professor Peter Tyrer (p.tyrer@imperial.ac.uk) of Imperial College.

 The Nottingham Study researchers, based at Imperial College, will not pass identifiable information about you to others at Imperial College London.  However, we will use your name, NHS number, date of birth, postcode, sex and unique study ID to send to NHS Digital for the purposes of flagging on the Medical Research Information System.  NHS Digital will return to Imperial College London current address details of participants, and any date and cause of death details if applicable. The researchers will use this information as needed, to contact you about the research study, and make sure that relevant information about the study is recorded for your care, and to oversee the quality of the study. The people who analyse the information will not be able to identify you and will not be able to find out your name, or contact details as these will be replaced with a study ID.

 The Nottingham Study researchers (Helen and Peter Tyrer) will keep identifiable information about you from this study for 6 months after the study has finished.

 LEGAL BASIS

 As a university we use personally-identifiable information to conduct research to improve health, care and services. As a publicly-funded organisation, we have to ensure that it is in the public interest when we use personally-identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research.  This means that when you agree to take part in a research study, we will use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse the research study.

 The legal basis for processing is covered under Article 6 (1)(e) and Article 9 (2)(j).

 Health and care research should serve the public interest, which means that we have to demonstrate that our research serves the interests of society as a whole. We do this by following the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research.

 INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

No identifiable data will be transferred for the purposes of this study.”

 CONTACT US

Data Protection Officer

 If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data or if you want to find out more about how we use your information, please contact Imperial College London’s Data Protection Officer via email at dpo@imperial.ac.uk, via telephone on 020 7594 3502 and via post at Imperial College London, Data Protection Officer, Faculty Building Level 4, London SW7 2AZ.

 Information Commissioner’s Office

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO does recommend that you seek to resolve matters with the data controller (us) first before involving the regulator.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted as below

Helpline: 0303 123 1113 Website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/raising-concerns/

 PURPOSES FOR PROCESSING

 The Nottingham study of neurotic disorder (NSND) was set up in 1983 to look at both the short and long term outcome of common anxiety and depressive disorders. In particular, it examined whether separately classifying individual neurotic disorders (for example into depression, bipolar affective disorder, social anxiety disorder) was actually helpful for either science or in treating sufferers of these conditions. Many patients were found to be have a mixed anxiety/depression disorder and could be considered to suffer from a general neurotic syndrome. The study investigated whether diagnosing a patient as suffering from a general neurotic disorder rather than making a conventional clinical diagnosis made any difference to predicting how the patient responded to treatment, or whether some modes of treatment (different treatments) were more successful than others. Data for the study has been collected on 9 further occasions since 1983, the last time being 12 years after the start of the trial. We are now repeating the assessments after 30 years as neurotic disorders can have some very long-term effects.

 The data are being collected as the final part of the study, which will enable the researchers to complete analysis of all the information collected over the past 30 years.  The only purpose for extra personal information to be collected at this time is the need to have the current addresses of the participants so that the researchers can visit them and complete the last interview. Participants, once contacted,  have the option of leaving the study and not taking part in this last interview if they so wish. The analysis will consist only of de-identified data (sets of numbers) and kept in a secure environment. Once the last data have been obtained all identifiable data will be destroyed.