Which sociodemographic and pathway to care factors influence the wait time for early intervention for psychosis? A mental health electronic health records analysis in South London

Wood, Nikki, Hodgekins, Jo, Shetty, Hitesh, Iacoponi, Eduardo, O'Donoghue, Brian, Stewart, Rob and Oduola, Sherifat (2025) Which sociodemographic and pathway to care factors influence the wait time for early intervention for psychosis? A mental health electronic health records analysis in South London. Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 19 (10). ISSN 1751-7885

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Abstract

Aim: In 2016, the Access and Waiting Time Standard (AWTS) was introduced in England, UK, outlining that people with first-episode psychosis should receive treatment from an early intervention for psychosis (EIP) service within 2 weeks. We examined sociodemographic, pathways to care (PtC), and clinical factors associated with EIP service wait time. Method: We collected de-identified data from a large mental health provider in South London, UK. We included patients referred and accepted to EIP services as inpatient or community contacts between 1 May 2016 and 30 April 2019, providing 3 years of data from the introduction of AWTS. Descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regression were performed. Results: A total of 1806 patients were identified with a mean age of 30 (SD: 10.7) years, of whom 86.3% (n = 1559) accessed community EIP and 13.7% (n = 247) accessed inpatient EIP; of these, 26.7% were not seen within 2 weeks. Community EIP patients waited longer adj.β = 2.21 days (95% CI: 2.05–2.37) compared with inpatient EIP patients, and being older was associated with longer wait time. Conversely, a shorter wait time was associated with A&E [adj.β = −0.22 days (95% CI: −0.36, −0.10)] and ‘other’ [adj.β = −0.21 days (95% CI: −0.36, −0.03)] PtC characteristics. White non-British and South Asian patients had shorter wait times compared with White British patients; however, this difference diminished after adjusting for PtC and clinical factors. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that individual factors, PtC, and mode of contact influence wait time for EIP services. More than a quarter of patients were not seen within 2 weeks, indicating that targeted support in community EIP services is needed to meet clinical guidelines.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability Statement: Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. Funding: This work was supported by UK Research and Innovation (MR-VO49879/1), the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR 207498), the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at the South London, the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at the South London & the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South London (NIHR ARC South London), the UKRI—Medical Research Council and DATAMIND HDR UK Mental Health Data Hub (MR/W014386).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	early intervention psychosis,pathways to care,sociodemographic factors,treatment delays
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Mental Health Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Mental Health and Social Care (fka Lifespan Health) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Health Promotion Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Public Health
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	07 Oct 2025 15:33
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2025 15:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100672
DOI:	10.1111/eip.70087

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