PERMEPSY: A Predictive Tool to Personalise Psychosis Treatment

Psychosis affects approximately 1.2% of the global population, with schizophrenia being one of the most common psychotic disorders, affecting 24 million people worldwide. Despite effective therapeutic interventions, only one-third of those affected receive specialised treatment. The European project Personalised Medicine approach to psychological treatment for Psychosis (Permepsy) aims to address this gap.

The goal is to revolutionise psychological treatment for psychosis through innovative technologies and personalised interventions. To this end, SOCO and GREC at the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) are developing a personalised medicine platform.

Utilising predictive models created with machine learning techniques, the new tool will predict the most suitable personalised treatment for each patient. The platform integrates retrospective data from 700 psychosis patients treated with metacognitive training (MCT) psychological therapy. It collects sociodemographic, clinical, cognitive, and metacognitive indicators, as well as biomarkers associated with treatment response in schizophrenia.

By analysing the different markers from retrospective data and patient characteristics, the tool will predict whether a person will complete metacognitive training therapy and the therapy's effectiveness and improvement possibilities. This allows for personalised treatment for each patient.

The prototype platform will be tested in a pilot clinical trial over one year with more than 250 patients, starting next September, by the project's clinical partners who have collaborated over the years to develop MCT strategies for psychosis patients at different stages of the disorder. The ultimate goal is to offer the global medical community a free tool to improve psychosis treatment.

At UPC, researchers responsible for data analysis and predictive model development are involved, as well as a software development team.

In addition to UPC, the consortium includes research centres from Spain, Germany, France, Poland, and Chile, led by the Sant Joan de Déu Research Foundation. The team comprises experts in clinical psychology, psychiatry, molecular biology, statistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence. PERMEPSY is a three-year project (2023-2026) with a budget of €1,214,344.