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The Catalogue of Mental Health Measures is based on a review of the mental health and wellbeing measures in UK cohort and longitudinal studies. Here we give an overview of studies that met inclusion criteria, what information can be found in the Catalogue and how this information was collected.

Cohort and longitudinal studies included in the review

The UK is home to the world’s largest and longest-running portfolio of longitudinal studies, which feature large sample sizes, wide breadths of measures and exceptionally long follow-up times. The Catalogue focuses on studies that met five main criteria. To be included in the Catalogue, studies need to:

• Have collected, or plan to collect, data at multiple time points.Most studies in the Catalogue are cohort or household panel studies. This means that data were collected about the same individuals or households over time. A small number of large repeated cross-sectional studies, which collected information from a new sample at each time point, have also been included because of their value to mental health research.
• Include measures of mental health or wellbeing.
• Have at least 200 participants at the first data collection point.
• Have collected data in the UK.Most studies in the Catalogue have an exclusively UK-based sample. A small number of studies have included international samples in addition to a British sample.
• Be ongoing. Studies must have collected data in the last two years, be currently collecting data or have firm plans to collect new data to be included at this stage.

We did not include studies that focus on a specific physical health problem such as cancer or diabetes but met our inclusion criteria at this stage. This is to ensure that we have focused on studies that are most likely to be useful to users from a wide range of disciplines interested in conducting research about mental health. 

We have identified the following list of studies based on the above criteria. The full list of studies we have reviewed so far can be found here.

If you know a study that meets our inclusion criteria but is not listed here, please do get in touch with us at cataloguemhm@kcl.ac.uk

Mental health problems in the Catalogue

We have aimed to include a wide range of mental health and related topics in the Catalogue in order to give a full view of the data that have been collected. The topics include:

The Catalogue focuses on measures of mental health and wellbeing. As a result, the Catalogue does not at this stage include measures of:

• Cognition and neurocognitive disorders Measures of cognition (e.g. intelligence and memory) and measures focusing on learning disabilities and difficulties or neurocognitive disorders (e.g. dementia) are not detailed in the Catalogue. If you are interested in dementia, Dementias Platform UK provides information on neurocognitive data in over 35 British cohorts. For a review of the cognitive measures in the British Birth Cohorts, see the CLOSER funded project Assessment and Harmonisation of Cognitive Measures in British Birth Cohorts.
• Personality and temperament Measures of personality traits and temperament are not covered in the Catalogue. However, measures of symptoms and diagnosis of personality disorders are included.
• Risk factors for mental health problems The majority of the studies in the Catalogue also include measures of biological and social risk factors for mental health problems, such as genes, trauma and poverty, but these are not currently listed in the Catalogue.

Populations and participants

Most of the cohort and longitudinal studies included in the Catalogue recruited from the general population, while a small number focused on clinical samples. The age of study participants also varies across cohorts, with studies recruiting participants at all stages of the life course from birth to older age. Participants’ year of birth similarly differ widely, from the early twentieth century to 2020.

Many studies collected data on multiple members of a family or household. We have included information about mental health and wellbeing measures in participants who are the s of the study (sometimes called 'cohort members'). Where appropriate, the Catalogue also provides information about measures related to members of their family who are in their generation or older, such as their siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and teachers. At this stage, the Catalogue does not detail measures of mental health and wellbeing in participants' children and partners.

Collecting the information

Information about the measures was collected primarily by searching study documentation, including questionnaires, user guides and relevant journal articles. For many studies, this information was publicly available. When this was not the case, we contacted study leadership teams directly to access the documentation required to collect information about the mental health measures in the study. To ensure the accuracy of the information in the Catalogue, we asked all studies to check that our review of the measures was accurate and complete. This Catalogue would not have been possible without the study leadership teams’ collaboration, and we are extremely grateful for their time and support. THANK YOU!!