RADAR Study (Research into Antipsychotic Discontinuation and Reduction)

Personally the results of RADAR will help me to reduce my medication, whilst reducing the exposure to relapse. There is also the reward from knowing that the study will help others in a similar situation to my own. They will provide support to the decision making process one way or another, giving the patients confidence to trust the results of the research.

As someone who was never prescribed any medication prior to having a mental health problem, when I was given my first prescription to treat me for the duration of 28 days, I had convinced myself I would be better, rather naively, by the time I got to the end of this script. Never would I have thought that over 10 years later, I would have made a significant number of changes to my livelihood and still be taking medication.

My mental health recovery has taken a number of years to, primarily find the right medication to treat my symptoms and then secondary, find the right diagnosis. There have been a number of obstacles to this recovery, building trust whilst acutely ill has often taken longer than necessary. If I had access to the results of the studies such as the RADAR study, then this would really help the decision making process and reassure you in the longer term that you have made the right decision.

When time with psychiatrists is often limited, there is often only enough time to discuss, the short to medium term of taking medication (a daily, weekly, or monthly basis). The results of the RADAR study will give long term knowledge for mental health professionals to discuss with their patients. Thus helping the prescriber of medication and the patient to be reassured that they won’t necessarily be on this medication forever.

Understanding Experiences of Feeling Exceptional: A Clinical Questionnaire Study

In verbalising my experience and imparting some knowledge of the subject of the research I found that it helped me to gain further insight and I felt good to perhaps shed some light on it with the hope that others would benefit from my participation in the future.

The experience of the research was particularly good in that it allowed me to talk openly about my condition to the two researchers who were friendly, sympathetic and knowledgeable about the subject, who also valued my contribution. I enjoyed sharing.