Research Assistant - DISCA

About us:

The Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry is world-renowned for its progressive research in the field of child and adolescent mental health.

In 2025, the Department will be moving to the newly built Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People (PMC). The PMC has been developed by the King’s Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People – a partnership between King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Maudsley Charity. The Centre’s aim is to reduce the rate and impact of child mental health through world-leading research and its speedy translation into clinical care. This will be achieved through the co-location of clinical and academic teams to ensure that clinically relevant research is translated into novel preventions and treatments to benefit young people.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Assistant to work on a multicentre project funded by the NIHR that examines the effects of digital sleep therapy in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. The post-doc will be based in KCL, London and work closely with Prof Rubia but be part of a multi-centre team led by Prof Catherine Hill and Prof Samuele Cortese and others across London and Southampton (The DISCA project).

The aim of the project is to test whether a newly developed digital parent-guided behavioural intervention for chronic insomnia in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (70% of people with ADHD have sleep problems) is significantly more cost-effective than treatment-as-usual (TAU) to improve sleep and other relevant outcomes (e.g., child behaviour and parental well-being, neuropsychological functioning and other measures).

The appointed person will assist in the set-up and operational management of the Sleep Buddy randomised controlled trial at the KCL research hub. The trial will evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a digital intervention for parents of children with ADHD and chronic insomnia.

The candidate will work on the development of an exciting new digital sleep therapy for ADHD with a multidisciplinary team of sleep experts, cognitive neuroscientists, child psychiatrists and statisticians.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week) and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 20th August 2027.

About you:

Essential criteria

1. BA or BSc in psychology, neuroscience, medicine, computing/IT/maths, neurobiology, or related subjects.
2. Prior experience in a related field or with neuropsychological testing.
3. Good IT literacy – MS office applications.
4. Excellent communication in written and spoken English and excellent interpersonal skills to establish and maintain good channels of communication with participants and research team.
5. Able to plan and prioritise a range of one’s own, and the team’s, standard and non- standard work activities.
6. Ability to be proactive and creative to manage recruitment numbers.
7. Ensure regular liaison and communication with colleagues involved in managing the clinical trial, at participating sites and with parent support groups.
8. Able to elicit information to identify specific site/trial needs.

Desirable criteria

1. Relevant experience with recruitment into trials.
2. Experience of working in a team.
3. Knowledge and experience of medical research methodology and statutory clinical trial regulations and GCP.
4. Experience of clinical trials in the NHS or the commercial health research sector.
5. Experience of successful project management.

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