Cohort profile: working age adults accessing secondary mental health services in South London (UK) and benefits – a data linkage of electronic mental health records and benefits data

This study describes a cohort of working age adults from a novel data linkage. The data linkage is comprised of routine electronic mental health records from The South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust and benefits records from The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The data linkage spans 15 years, with SLaM data covering the period 2007-2019 and DWP data covering the period 2005-2020. The linkage was established to investigate the interrelationships between benefit receipt and mental health (including mental health service utilisation) in patients accessing secondary mental health services in South London, UK. Clinical data from SLaM includes information on sociodemographics, diagnoses, assessments, treatments, interventions, and service interaction. Benefits data from DWP provides information on benefit types received, spell dates and entitlement amounts, work capability assessments and work programme access. This cohort included all working age adults (aged 18-65 years) referred to/receiving treatment from SLaM services between January 2007 and June 2019. We report the sociodemographics and psychiatric diagnoses of n=150,348 working age adults, as well as the types of benefits received. We showed that 78.3% of working age adults received a benefit relating to unemployment or work-related income, sickness or disability, or a housing benefit, and that 68.0% of this group had a recorded primary psychiatric diagnosis. The most commonly received diagnoses were alcohol related disorders and substance related disorders (17.2%), followed by mood (affective) disorders (16.5%). We also observed that nearly 70% of claimants who had received more than one benefit were residing in the two most deprived areas across the South London boroughs covered by SLaM.