CommonGround
King’s Health Partners and Impact on Urban Health are funding a team of researchers from King’s College London to develop an intervention to support the psychosocial needs of people with long-term physical health conditions. This work is needed because there is currently no targeted psychological treatment available that intervenes early to support these people with their mental health, who may be at high risk of developing major depressive disorder.
CommonGround is an online peer support platform developed by the Department of Psychological Medicine at King’s College London in collaboration with people with long-term conditions and specialist software developers BitJam (and previously TOAD). The journey of bringing CommonGround into reality as an intervention to support the mental wellbeing of people with long-term conditions is ongoing.
The initial stages of research explored whether patients would want an online peer support platform with evidence-based self-help information to help them learn how to better self-manage their physical and mental health. In 2023 the paper ‘A qualitative exploration of the psychosocial needs of people living with long-term conditions and their perspectives on online peer support’ was published. Based on what patients said, the researchers began a process of co-production to create CommonGround, an intervention with the needs of patients at the centre.
What happens now?
For the next steps of this study, there will be a three-month randomised controlled trial of CommonGround. Participants will be asked to feedback on what they think about the platform and their thoughts on participating in trial, and we will also assess how feasible it may be to run a larger trial of the platform. These next stages will help the research team to understand the future of CommonGround, to ultimately assess how effective Common Ground is at helping patients manage their mental health.
The CommonGround team has a new website for anyone who would like to learn more about our research: whether you are a person with a long-term condition who is interested in participating in the trial or joining our Patient Public Involvement panel, a researcher, or a clinician. You can read their blogs, meet the team, or contact for more information.
Want to get involved?
If you are someone living with a long-term condition who is interested in participating in our trial to understand what people think about our new peer support platform, please click here to read more. If you have any questions, please email the research team at commonground@kcl.ac.uk.
Recent blogs
Blogs from the team are published on the QUAHRC site.
Exploring the unmet psychosocial needs of people living with long-term conditions. This blog discusses the key findings of a recently published study we did to understand the unmet psychosocial needs of people living with long-term conditions and their thoughts of online peer support.
Online peer support for preventing co-morbid depression in people with long-term conditions. The first blog ever written about our journey of creating an online peer support to prevent comorbid depression in people with long-term conditions, giving a brief overview.
“I knew at that moment, I wasn’t alone”: new support for people with LTCs. This blog includes reflections of the patient public involvement group, software developers, and research team on the early stages of developing the online intervention.
Lessons learned; online co-production in the COVID19 pandemic. Members of a collaborative research team share their reflections on the challenges and learnings conducting co-produced research online while developing a peer support platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.