Since graduating from the University of Cardiff, Wales with first-class honors in Applied Psychology (BSc) in 2004, Clare has gained more than 15 years of experience in conducting and disseminating social justice and applied healthcare research.
After completing her undergraduate degree, Clare joined the Institute of Criminology, the University of Cambridge where she worked as a research assistant and Ph.D. candidate investigating variations in the quality of life for prisoners in the UK prison system. In particular, Clare studied the cultural and systemic differences between public and private sector male prisons in England and their impact on rates of serious self-harm and suicide in prisoners. During this time, Clare also acted as a consultant for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales, advising them on a statistical analysis of large-scale quantitative data.
In 2011, Clare began conducting psychiatry research in the National Health Service (NHS), focusing on the recruitment of services users to academic and Industry studies, including research into common mental disorder (CMD), psychosis, eating disorders, learning disabilities, and personality disorder.
In 2018, Clare left the NHS as a senior manager overseeing the regional delivery of the National Institute of Health Research studies in the East of England. She now oversees a large NIHR funded psychiatry program grant at the University of Cambridge where she regularly publishes research findings in high impact peer-reviewed journals.
Some of Clare’s recent publications include:
- Knight, C., Russo, D. Stochl. J. et al. (in press). Prevalence of and Recovery from Common Mental Disorder including Psychotic Experiences in Primary Mental Health Care Services in England: Casting the Net Wider. J Affect Disord.
- Knight, C., Russo, D. Stochl. J. et al. (2020). Prevalence of and Recovery from Common Mental Disorder including Psychotic Experiences in the UK Primary Care Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Programme. J Affect Disord. 2020 May 3;272:84-90. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.04.015
- Knight, C., Perez, J., Stochl, J. (2019). Revisiting cape-P15 cut-off values to increase sensitivity for detecting psychotic experiences in primary care. Schizophr Res. 2019 Dec 5. PII: S0920-9964(19)30558-4. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2019.11.051.
- Soneson, E, Russo, D, Knight, C et al. (2019). Psychological interventions for people with psychotic experiences: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled and uncontrolled effectiveness and economic studies. Systematic Reviews (2019) 8:124 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-019-1041-5
Clare’s passion lies in conducting applied health research within mental health services: designing studies that not only improve services and treatment for patients but can be rapidly implemented, allowing evidence-based interventions to reach those in need quickly. As a person with a lived experience of mental health difficulties, Clare is committed to enhancing patient and public involvement (PPI) in research design and delivery and works collaboratively with several PPI groups.
Clare has been a scientific writer for AZoNetwork since June 2019 and has written on a range of healthcare topics including treatments for psychosis, current controversies in diagnostic criteria, and research methodology.