Taking lived experience involvement in mental health research forward: developing a Mental Health Treatment Acceptability Measure (MHTA).

Nearly half of patients with major psychiatric disorders stop taking their medication because they find it unacceptable, yet no existing treatment acceptability measure has involved patients in its design. This research addresses a fundamental gap in mental health care: the mismatch between what researchers measure—clinical efficacy—and what patients actually experience. Current measures ignore factors like treatment burden, side effects, and personal attitudes that determine whether someone will stick with a therapy. The researcher aims to build a national centre of excellence in lived experience methods, starting by developing a Mental Health Treatment Acceptability Measure (MHTA) co-created with people who have mental health problems. If successful, the MHTA could transform how treatments are evaluated and designed. Clinicians and drug developers would have a standardised tool to assess whether a treatment is not just effective but also tolerable and practical for patients. This could reduce non-adherence rates, improve treatment outcomes, and make mental health care more responsive to what patients actually need. The broader goal is to embed lived experience expertise permanently into mental health research, shifting the field’s priorities from purely symptom reduction to patient-centred acceptability.