PhD Studentship: Understanding and Improving the Provision of Clinical Services for Youth with Disruptive Behaviour Disorders

This project is being advertised as one that is in competition for one of 18 fully funded MRC studentships starting in October 2027. If you are interested in applying, please contact the named supervisor and apply via the MRC GW4 BioMed link given below.

This PhD project will involve mapping mental health service provision for children and young people with disruptive behaviour disorders such as conduct disorder through a nationally representative survey of healthcare professionals, commissioners, and parents and caregivers. It will identify barriers to service access, healthcare professionals’ training needs and existing care pathways. The PhD student will also use existing longitudinal data to investigate the impact of accessing versus not accessing mental health support, on children and parents’ mental health and wellbeing, and health economic outcomes. The overall objective is to improve care for this disadvantaged group and their families and inform healthcare commissioning and mental health policy.

The main study will be a nationally representative survey asking NHS clinicians whether youth with conduct problems are diagnosed and accepted for treatment in their services and whether their services adhere to clinical guidelines (i.e., NICE) for the management of disruptive behaviour disorders. It will also ask about their training needs, and facilitators and barriers to working effectively with this population. The project will be modelled on the Mapping ADHD services in Primary care (MAP) study, which was a nationally representative survey of adult ADHD services, treatment and prescribing practices (Price et al., 2024). Three different stakeholder groups will be surveyed: healthcare professionals, commissioners, and the parents of children and young people with disruptive behaviour disorders. This will yield a national map of clinical care for disruptive behaviour disorders in England, highlighting examples of good practice and ways to overcome barriers to service access, which will be made publicly available.

Additional studies are likely to involve a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches, e.g., a vignette study investigating whether mental health professionals recognise symptoms of disruptive behaviour disorders as a mental health issue and can accurately identify/diagnose these disorders, and analysis of longitudinal cohort data to examine mental health trajectories in children and young people who access versus those who do not access treatment. The successful candidate would be based within the NIHR Mental Health Research Group at the University of Bath (but with strong links with Exeter and Bristol), and therefore part of a wider team investigating service access for children and young people with disruptive behaviour and neurodevelopmental disorders. For more information about the Bath Mental Health Research Group and the study team, please see: https://bathmhrg.org/

Funding Information

Up to £2000 a year for research costs and training, plus £300 a year for a travel or conference attendance. There is also flexible funding of up to £5000 to support high-cost research and/or external training costs.

Full tuition fees for 4 years at the UK/Home rate will also be covered. These studentships are open to both Home and International students. International applicants should note that the funding unfortunately does NOT cover the cost of a student visa, healthcare surcharge and other costs of moving to the UK.