British Psychological Society: Development and promotion of valid psychological screening to predict chronicity, post COVID-19 infection, 2021

[rvallee]

Oof. They sure have a fantastical perception of what they do, because on all counts it's a complete failure. "Understand physical illness", good grief.

It frankly reads just like any other alternative medicine, all promises with nothing to actually show for it. It's really just an aspirational list of goals, not anything they can actually do.

Or like Bullshido masters, who at least usually have the good sense never to step out of their theater, sorry I mean McDojo. It usually ends about exactly like this little episode, although I'm sure this guy will take all the wrong lessons out of it.

 

[Hutan]

I think it's of note that Lex Medica, the source of that information I quoted above, is an organisation that facilitates medical professionals being expert witnesses in court cases. It is not completely clear to me who Patrick Hill has worked for in those cases.

I also didn't notice the first time I read that Lex Medica information that Patrick Hill is 'registered as a Chartered Scientist by the Science Council'. Hill's ability to understand what is good science, and to act ethically would seem to be limited, given he can put his name to statements like this:

A focus on the development, application, and promotion of valid and reliable psychological screening to predict long COVID or Post Covid Syndrome, based on previous cognitive behavioural research in this area i.e., 'all or nothing behaviour' and 'negative perfectionism'.

 

[MSEsperanza]

Has anyone captured the video and also the proposal, which has now been removed?

The proposal was copied in this post up thread.

If I remember properly the person in the video just read out the proposal?

And was there an official society explanation for what happened?

I think the most official explanation were these 2 Tweets:

https://twitter.com/BPSOfficial/status/1437716385531105284

Edited: About the campaign: https://www.bps.org.uk/senate

 

[Adrian]

Merged thread
Coyne has written a blog about the British Psychological Society's attempts to introduce psychological screening for long covid

A campaign theme proposed by a psychological association reeked of pseudoscience. A community of largely disabled chronically ill persons politely posted solid evidence against the proposal on social media and got it abandoned.

Just Say “No!” to Psychological Screening to Predict and Treat #LongCovid | by James C. Coyne | Sep, 2021 | Medium

 

[rvallee]

"4. Campaign theme - Development and promotion of valid psychological screening to predict chronicity, post COVID-19 infection.

Member network
Division of Health Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology

A cognitive-behavioural model, first described by Surawy et al in 1995 has been successful in predicting the transition from acute to chronic states in a number of health conditions. This model has been shown to predict chronic fatigue syndrome following glandular fever, irritable bowel syndrome from campylobacter infection and post-concussional syndrome following mild head injury.


Campaign scope
A focus on the development, application, and promotion of valid and reliable psychological screening to predict long COVID or Post Covid Syndrome, based on previous cognitive behavioural research in this area i.e., 'all or nothing behaviour' and 'negative perfectionism'. The consequences of COVID infection and hospital care, for example, raised levels of anxiety and depression, trauma following critical care are outside the scope of this campaign.


Campaign outputs
A simple validated psychological screening tool, that can be easily administered in Primary Care similar to GAD-7 (Anxiety), PHQ-9 (Depression) and STarT (Back pain) questionnaires.

The development of appropriate support pathways, with availability of psychologically based multidisciplinary services to promote cognitive behavioural change and recovery, aligned with the Surawy model.

An information campaign to promote a biopsychosocial approach to long covid or PCS, in order to avoid the inevitable distress that can result from dualistic, biomedical reductionism.

Audience/stakeholders
NHS England and other fundholding bodies, NHS Commissioners, The Royal Colleges, GPs, the general public


Existing evidence base

These are the references for previous work in this area. They outline the original model proposed by Surawy et al in 1995 and the application of the model to other clinical areas. The Behavioural Responses to Illness questionnaire cited, is a screening tool developed for exactly this purpose.

Surawy C, Hackmann A, Hawton K, et al. Chronic fatigue syndrome: a cognitive approach. Behav Res Ther 1995; 33(5): 535–544.

Moss-Morris R, Spence M and Hou R. The pathway from glandular fever to chronic fatigue syndrome: can the cognitive behavioural model provide the map? Psychol Med 2011; 41(5): 1099–1107.

Spence MJ and Moss-Morris R. The cognitive behavioural model of irritable bowel syndrome: a prospective investigation of patients with gastroenteritis. Gut 2007; 56: 1066–1071.

Hou R, Moss-Morris R, Peveler R, et al. When a minor head injury results in enduring symptoms: a prospective investigation of risk factors for postconcussional syndrome after mild traumatic brain injury. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2012; 83(2): 217–223.

Brooks SK, Chalder T and Rimes KA. Chronic fatigue syndrome: cognitive, behavioural and emotional processing vulnerability factors. Behav Cogn Psychother 2017(45): 156– 169.

Spence MJ, Moss-Morris R and Chalder T. The Behavioural Responses to Illness Questionnaire (BRIQ): a new predictive measure of medically unexplained symptoms following acute infection. Psychol Med 2005; 35(4):583–593.

Hill P., (2018) Chronic pain: a consequence of dysregulated protective action, British Journal of Pain 2019, Vol 13 (1) 13–21


How will inequalities be addressed?
Adaptation of screening tools and information for non-English speaking populations. Support for people with poor literacy to take part both in screening and the information campaign.
The campaign may help to highlight populations vulnerable to long COVID because of economic or environmental pressures which influence their behaviour.

Contact Name

Dr Patrick Hill"

In this edition of the Covid Bulletin we are again having a major focus on Long Covid, which we hope will be helpful to you as this continues to be a significant area for clinical psychologists from both research and service perspectives.

https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bp.../DCP/DCP Covid-19 Bulletin - October 2021.pdf

(Page 3):

The BPS has been using a new system for choosing its annual Senate campaign this year. Member networks were invited to submit suggestions on a policy area and individuals could only submit a suggestion with the approval of the network chair.

However, due to an administrative error, one proposal to 'develop and promote valid psychological screening to predict chronicity post-Covid-19 infection' was accepted without having been seen by either DCP or DHP. When the video of this proposal was posted on twitter and drew critical attention, the error was recognised and the proposal withdrawn.

It is very unfortunate that this happened. It caused anger and distress and it was thought by some to be a policy statement from the BPS rather than a proposal being put by one member to the membership. It had not been seen by or endorsed by the DCP.

Following the Twitter discussions, we invited Louise Kenward to write an article for the Covid Bulletin exploring the issues raised by the proposal and, more widely, the links between Long Covid and similar conditions like Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

Louise Kenward writes:

Following the rapid withdrawal to the recently published video (13/9/21) by the British Psychological Society official Twitter account, I am grateful to the invitation to contribute to this newsletter. Long Covid is a post viral illness where symptoms persist for more than three months. The latest estimates, published in June, suggest that more than two million people in the UK have had Long Covid since the pandemic began, while figures released by the National Office of Statistics in April show that more than 120,000 of those are NHS staff.

Long Covid follows a long line of post-viral illnesses. Millions of people around the world have experienced very similar things to people now living with Long Covid: they have contracted an illness, but have not recovered. Many of these people have gone on to be diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS – a complex multi system neurological condition).

...

continues (~12 pages)
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[Hutan]

(Edit - thanks Rvallee for posting about the BPS Bulletin)

Wow, I kept on wanting to share paragraphs of that article by Louise Kenward with you. That is quite a shift, getting an article like that in the BPS Covid-19 Bulletin. Louise talks about how illnesses similar to Long Covid have long been seen after other viral illnesses. She talks about the stigma of these illnesses.

For those aware of the context, the field and the history of post viral illnesses and ME/CFS, it will be understood why I, and so many others, reeled in horror at the mere suggestion of a bio-psychosocial campaign for Long Covid.

The proposal indicated a dangerous level of ignorance to the current research on Long Covid and a profound disconnection to the context of what it was purporting. Since the beginning of the pandemic the ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) community has been raising the alarm of the risk of Long Covid. Not only a pandemic of acute illness, where people die or survive, but of chronic illness, where people do not recover.

There's talk of the PACE trial, how people could deteriorate, and still be labelled as recovered. And how it is used in universities as an example of 'how badly research can go wrong'.

Louise talks about the useful things that psychologists can do to help people with ME/CFS, for example, processing grief.



The next article in the bulletin is about IAPT and Long Covid. Even that was talking about 'energy management' and listening to the patient to start with. But then the talk turned to vicious cycles and how CBT can break them. There are links to information sources: the Covid-19 rapid guideline (which completely ignores ME/CFS and PEM); NHSE IAPT webinars on Long Covid; and NHS Plan for Long Covid 2021-22 (I haven't seen the webinars and plan; I don't know what they are like).



And then the next article is worse, I think.

Update on 'Living With' Covid recovery digitally-enabled rehabilitation programme
This novel app-based programme (see May edition of the Covid-19 bulletin) has been designed to support Long Covid clinics to identify, manage and treat large numbers of people.

We have more clearly articulated the way the main symptoms of Long Covid interact with each other using a version of the Vicious Flower model and there is an introductory module that explains this.

Vicious Flower? It seems it is the famous vicious cycle on steroids - multiple vicious cycles all reinforcing each other. The cycles are petals that can be 'plucked off', one by one.

The Vicious Flower Formulation is a deceptively simple case conceptualization (formulation) tool. By encouraging a focus on the maintenance cycles which (often unintentionally) prolong a difficulty it is a tool which targets the mechanisms serving to prolong an individual’s difficulty. In this graphical representation maintenance cycles form the ‘petals’ of a flower.

there is more work to be done in order to improve its usability and incorporate elements known to promote behaviour changes such as goal setting

So, the British Psychological Society is certainly giving mixed messages. But 'mixed' is a major step forward from 'wall to wall bio-psychosocial certainty'. It feels as though things are changing.

 

[Joan Crawford]

How had I missed this thread! I'm not in Clinical or Health sections so I don't see the bulletin. The later section of the BPS was dominated for a long time by AW. Enough said.

Bloomin' heck. Swift about turn thankfully. Should never have seen the light of day.

The BPS is in turmoil currently. Not had time to keep up to pace with what is up, tbh.

After the div of clinical psychology awarded Richard Brown a 'medal' for his woo about MUS back in 2013 where he claimed to be able to 'explain the unexplained' via hypnosis and psychobabble I thought it was timely to challenge this. I did and I had a balanced criticism of his work published in The Psychologist. And I got positive feedback form colleagues (ditto recent publications re FM and MUS). But, no response from Richard. Not a bean.