Collaborative Research with ORYGEN

ORYGEN provides mental health assessment and treatment services for young people aged 15 to 24 years, who live in the western and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. Treatment is offered for a maximum total of 18 months. There are a number of specialist clinics that provide treatment for mood and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, first episode psychosis, and individuals at high risk for developing psychosis.

ORYGEN Research Centre is a comprehensive youth mental health research centre that functions alongside ORYGEN Youth Health, and is affiliated with the departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne and with strong ties to researchers elsewhere in Australia and overseas. The aims of the ORYGEN Research Centre are to investigate the causes, prevention, and treatment of mental illness in young people.

Aside from a wide range of research studies investigating innovative approaches to treatment, primary prevention, and relapse prevention, ORYGEN also conducts studies on the causes of mental health problems in community samples. For example, the ORYGEN Adolescent Emotional Development Study, which is led by Associate Professor Nick Allen from our department, is a longitudinal study of the biological and psychosocial factors that contribute to the onset of high prevalence disorders, such as depression, eating disorder, and substance abuse, during early adolescence. A number of department members, including Dr. Paul Dudgeon and Dr. Jeneva Ohan, are working with Associate Professor Allen and colleagues from the ORYGEN Research Centre and the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre on this study.

The relationship between the Department of Psychology and ORYGEN gives our researchers access to young people seeking treatment form mental health problems, particularly first episode incidents in young people. This group of people are of particular interest as they are in the initial stages of mental health trauma, and have not previously undergone treatment or medication.

Our clinical partnership allows us to conduct particular research into these developing cases, and therefore study the formative phases of psychosis in young people, with an emphasis on prevention and expanding current knowledge of emerging mental health problems in young people. In one example, Associate Professor John Gleeson is leading a study conducting a randomized controlled trial at ORYGEN Youth Health to evaluate the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioural intervention designed to reduce the rate of relapse in young people who have reached remission following their first episode of psychosis.

Our research conducted through the ORYGEN Research Centre is recognised internationally.

The Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre

The Department of Psychology has collaborated with ORYGEN, and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne to create the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC)

EPPIC is a fully integrated service which sees 250 to 300 new clients with first episode psychosis each year. It is a component program of ORYGEN Youth Health.

Since 1984 the Aubrey-Lewis Unit at Royal Park Hospital had a special focus on young people experiencing their first episode of psychosis. From this the EPPIC model was developed and officially came into being in June 1992, when the focus of treatment was transferred to the community. At the same time the catchment area was extended to include 800,000 people in the north-western and western parts of Melbourne. This move to the community involved the establishment of a number of community focused services.

The aims and objectives of EPPIC are:

• Early identification and treatment of primary symptoms of psychotic illness with correspondingly improved access and reduced delays in initial treatment.
• Reduction of frequency and severity of relapse and increase in time to first relapse.
• Reduction of burden for carers and promotion of well-being among family members.
• Reduction of secondary morbidity in the post-psychotic phase of illness. Reduced disruption in social and vocational functioning, and in psychosocial development in the critical period of the early years following onset of illness when most disability tends to accrue.