What's Next for FReSH START?

At the end of April, we finished recruitment to the FReSH START randomised controlled trial and a total of 337 participants were recruited. This is an incredible achievement, and we are very grateful to everyone involved who has helped us get to this stage. FReSH START is a programme of research which seeks to develop and test a therapy intervention that can be delivered by mental health staff in a liaison setting for adults who self-harm and you can read more about it here https://freshstart.leeds.ac.uk/for-the-public/. Now that recruitment has finished, you may be wondering what happens next and when we will know the findings of the study?

Follow up will continue for 12 months until April 2026 and the trial results are anticipated once the analysis is completed. There are lots of people working on different parts of the study exploring if the therapy helps to improve the quality of life of adults who self-harm. They are also looking at how and why the therapy may or may not be effective. So, there is still a lot of information to collect, analyse and interpret. Our amazing trial and data management team are collecting data which will be used by our statisticians in the final analysis, and the process evaluation team will continue to interview participants, therapists and others involved in the study about their experiences of FReSH START.

All this information will be collected and analysed, and initial findings will hopefully be shared as soon as we are able. We will also be preparing various papers for publication and presenting at conferences. In addition, we plan to hold a dissemination event to share what we have learned from the FReSH START study with stakeholders, our lived experience group members and others who are interested in this work, though it is a little early to say when that will be.

So, in short, there is still quite a bit of work to do before we can say something about the effectiveness of the FReSH START therapy intervention. However, we will keep you updated on various aspects of the study on this website, on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/freshstart-uk.bsky.social, or LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/fresh-start-uk.