The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is developing a guideline on ‘Severe mental illness and substance misuse (dual diagnosis): community health and social care services’. Evidence reviews are being conducted to address the key questions that are set out in the scope. This will focus onidentifying the services people with a severe mental illness who misuse substances receive, and the content, configuration and acceptability of these services to meet wider health and social care needs. The guideline will not focus on content of interventions that should be delivered to people with a severe mental illness who misuse substances.

The final scope for this guidance can be found here.

We would like to receive details of grey literature and unpublished studies that provide evidence that relates to the questions below (taken from the scope):

Question 1:   Epidemiology and current practice:

• What are the health and social care needs of people in the UK with a severe mental illness who also misuse substances?
• What services do they currently receive?

Question 2:   Service models: content, configuration and acceptability:

• Which service models for health, social care and voluntary and community sector organisations are effective, cost effective and efficient at meeting the needs of people with a severe mental illness who also misuse substances?
• How do service users, their families or carers, providers and commissioners view health and social care services for people with a severe mental illness who also misuse substances? What are their experiences of these services?

Expected outcomes could include:

• Rates of coexisting severe mental illness and substance misuse by sociodemographic characteristics.
• Details of health and social care needs directly and indirectly associated with treatment of the diagnosed mental illness and substance misuse. For example: prevalence of other illnesses such as cardiac, respiratory and blood-borne diseases; social needs, such as safe and secure housing and employment.
• Details of types of health, social care, community and voluntary services that are provided and how these vary according to sociodemographic characteristics. This would include: the timing and delivery of diagnosis and treatment; waiting times, transfer and referral to other services; the availability and uptake of services; information on type of staff involved and staffing levels.
• Service user experience and outcomes (including views on different types of service, satisfaction, awareness, knowledge and use of wider services).
• Family and carer experience and outcomes (including views on different types of service, satisfaction, awareness, knowledge and use of wider services).
• Commissioner and provider views (including views on: the content and configuration of community-based services; facilitators or barriers to providing services; and resource needs).
• Changes in mental and physical health outcomes (for example, changes in relapse rates or incidents of overdose).
• Changes in broader socioeconomic variables (for example, employment, housing, level of benefits claimed).
• Processes to help service users access, attend and continue to use services. For example: physical accessibility and acceptability of services; practical help, such as reminders to attend; and non-clinical activities to get service users involved, such as ‘coffee mornings’.
• Changes in processes and outcomes (for example, changes in transfer and referral processes and waiting times).
• Changes in service use and costs (for example, measures of ongoing use of a service, including number of missed appointments and changes in adherence to any treatments delivered).

We are interested in identifying unpublished evaluations conducted since 2000 or any on-going research that is being conducted that relates to the review questions outlined above. We are particularly keen to receive evidence about recent or current service models aimed at this group of services, and a broad range of different types of evidence which may be from quantitative or qualitative research. The grey literature/unpublished evaluations may include service evaluations, needs assessments, unpublished audits, commissioning policies or strategies. We are also keen to identify ‘case studies’ which describe services specifically aimed at people with a severe mental illness who misuse substances as well as services that are aimed at populations which include a relatively high proportion of people with a severe mental illness who misuse substances (for example, homeless health services).

Please note that we are not able to accept the following material:

• Promotional material.
• Unsubstantiated or non-evidence-based assertions of effectiveness.
• Opinion pieces or editorial review
• Potentially unlawful or other inappropriate information
• Attachments of published material or hard copy of published material
• Material not available in English

Unpublished material

If you are aware of ongoing trials/research relevant to our questions which are in progress please could you help us to identify that information by providing relevant information such as a link to a registered trial with the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Clinical Trials) http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/cochrane_clcentral_articles_fs.html or, please could you provide details, for example: study title and contact details for the lead investigator.

If you wish to submit academic in confidence material i.e. written but not yet published, or commercial in confidence i.e. internal documentation, please underline the information. Information that is submitted under ‘commercial in confidence’ should also be highlighted in turquoise; information submitted under ‘academic in confidence’ should be highlighted in yellow.

If you wish to submit other forms of unpublished evaluations i.e. theses, technical reports, papers or other documents providing quantitative or qualitative evidence on the review questions outlined above please could you provide details, for example: study/report title and contact details for the lead author.

Please send using this form any relevant evidence details by 5:00pm on Thursday 19^th  February 2015 to cphdualdiagnosis@nice.org.uk

We look forward to receiving information on this and thank you in advance for your help.