Welcome to SPIRE, St Patrick’s Institutional Repository.
SPIRE is a digital space for research, academic and organisational information generated by staff across our services.
Established by Jonathan Swift in 1746, St Patrick’s Mental Health Services (SPMHS) is Ireland’s largest, independent, not-for-profit mental health service. In conjunction with our newly establish Academic Institute, SPIRE has been designed to store, catalogue, index, preserve, and share our academic outputs and aims to make published and unpublished work of our staff as widely available as possible. It includes the full text of journal articles, conference presentations, books and book chapters, technical reports, working papers, reviews and other scholarly contributions. Where material has already been published by external sources, it is made available subject to the open-access policies of the original publishers.
SPIRE aims to support and increase the impact of mental health research and ensure the voices of people who experience mental health difficulties, who participate in research, are heard and listened to. It is managed by the Academic Institute here in SPMHS.
You can learn more about our Academic Institute and our research activity here.
Recent Submissions
Item Nature-Based Interventions for Individuals with Psychiatric Disorders: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review with Random-Effects Meta-Analysis of Mental Health and Functional Outcomes. Behavioral Sciences(mdpi, 2026-06-11)Nature-based interventions (NBIs) are increasingly used in mental health services, but their effectiveness in people with psychiatric disorders, and how these individuals experience them, remains unclear. This review synthesised quantitative and qualitative evidence on NBIs in psychiatric populations. Eligible studies evaluated outdoor NBIs against controlled comparators, excluding neurodevelopmental/degenerative conditions and indoor or virtual interventions. Quantitative outcomes were synthesised using random-effects meta-analysis; qualitative data were analysed using thematic synthesis. Twenty-eight studies were included, mostly involving people with diagnoses of schizophrenia or depression. NBIs were associated with greater improvements in clinical symptoms than controlled comparators (pooled effect size 0.71 [95% CI 0.29–1.12]; p = 0.0009), with moderate heterogeneity (I2 = 48.6%). The qualitative synthesis identified five themes: Being in Nature, Personal Growth, Psychological Wellbeing, Social Relationships, and Physical Benefits. Participants reported reduced stress, improved mood and coping, strengthened identity, enhanced social connection, and increased energy. NBIs, particularly horticultural programmes and guided outdoor activities, may offer promising recovery-oriented adjuncts to psychiatric care. The next step is to build a translational evidence base by harmonising recovery-relevant outcomes and developing pragmatic, scalable models of delivery that can be embedded within routine mental health services, informed by mixed methods evaluation.Item The proportion of people with primary affective disorders presenting to early intervention services: systematic review and meta-analysis.(2026-04-30)People with affective psychotic disorders often face diagnostic delays and presentations are under-recognised at first contact with early intervention services (EIS). Despite their clinical significance, most research and service models for first-episode psychosis (FEP) have focused on non-affective psychoses.Item The Comparative Effectiveness of a Group Therapy for Overcontrol (Group Radical Openness) When Delivered In-Person vs. Remotely: Findings from a Retrospective Naturalistic Service Evaluation.(2026-04-27)Group Radical Openness (GRO) is a group therapy for the treatment of costly and harmful overcontrol. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the remote delivery of GRO, notwithstanding its highly interpersonal therapeutic focus. Based on positive service user feedback, the option to attend remotely was maintained after the pandemic. This service review evaluates this continued provision, through an assessment of the comparative effectiveness of GRO within in-person and videoconferencing (VC) formats.
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