Members of the DRN are working with colleagues at QUB, the Mental Health Foundation and Praxis Care on a new project addressing two questions to assess the feasibility of a larger scale intervention project: 

(1) How do people with serious and enduring mental illness perceive, use and benefit from green and blue space? 

(2) Does the interaction with green and blue spaces differ between SMI and the general population? 

Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, peer researchers will conduct qualitative interviews with mental health service users; these data will be used to design a quantitative survey to explore the relevant themes with a sub-sample of the CTG Health and Wellbeing Cohort and a general population sample. 

Investigators: Claire McCartan, Gavin Davidson (Queen’s University Belfast), Lee Knifton, Chris White (Mental Health Foundation), Paul Webb (Praxis Care), Liam Bradley, Katherine Greer (Peer Researchers)