Child and adolescent mental health Panic attacks and panic disorder in adolescence: improving understanding, treatment outcomes and support in schools

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Children and young people's mental health is an urgent and complex clinical issue. I am highly motivated to use rigorous scientific methodologies to address this public health problem. I became interested in this field through lived experience of mental health problems as a teenager and my subsequent undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. I thrived while studying in an intense academic environment, and in my final year focused on clinical and developmental modules, achieving a First Class degree and receiving the Magdalen College Senior Tutor's Award for Academic Excellence. I have since worked in roles as a Research Assistant and Administrator across two research groups (the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Oxford Psychological Interventions for Children and Adolescents groups) based in the ExperimentalPsychology and Psychiatry departments within the University of Oxford. I have thus gained valuable experience, developing my research interests and confirming my commitment to a clinical-academic career focused on youth mental health research. I have enjoyed being part of busy and dynamic research groups and gained a wide range of skills. These include proficiency in using software, such as RedCAP and R, for data collection and analysis. For example, I have been preparing a codebook for a large longitudinal dataset which is being made open access. I aim to further develop and implement my understanding of the Open Science movement as my career progresses. While working on a clinical trial evaluating an anxiety intervention for young children, I have followed ethical guidelines on data management, storage and confidentiality. I co-authored a research protocol paper which has been submitted to a journal for publication, and am currently preparing two systematic review manuscripts for submission in early 2022. I also co-authored scientific reports on two projects which have been widely disseminated to policy makers, charities and other organisations. I hope to further develop my skills through doctoral study in a world-class research department and would fully exploit opportunities to learn from excellent colleagues and collaborators.