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In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the swift response of mental health research funders and institutions, service providers, and academics enabled progress toward understanding the mental health consequences. Nevertheless, there remains an urgent need to understand the true extent of the short- and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, necessitating ongoing research. Although the speed with which mental health researchers have mobilized to respond to the pandemic so far is to be commended, there are valid concerns as to whether speed may have compromised the quality of our work. As the pandemic continues to evolve, we must take time to reflect on our initial research response and collectively consider how we can use this to strengthen ensuing COVID-19 mental health research and our response to future crises. Here, we offer our reflections as members of the UK mental health research community to discuss the continuing progress and persisting challenges of our COVID-19 response, which we hope can encourage reflection and discussion among the wider research community. We conclude that (1) Fragmentation in our infrastructure has challenged the efficient, effective and equitable deployment of resources, (2) In responding quickly, we may have overlooked the role of experts by experience, (3) Robust and open methods may have been compromised by speedy responses, and (4) This pandemic may exacerbate existing issues of inequality in our workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Investigate the psychometric properties of the Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) for codeine and its association with aberrant codeine related behaviors. Design: A voluntary and uncompensated cross-sectional online survey. Setting: Online population (≥18 years). Respondents: Two hundred and eighty-six respondents (66% women) who had used codeine containing medicines in the last 3 months and were living in the UK. Results: Of the respondents (mean age = 35.4 years, SD = 12.5), more than half were employed. Only 3.5% respondents reported no income. The majority of respondents (45.1%) primarily obtained prescription-only codeine from a consultation with a health professional, whilst 40.9% mainly purchased "over-the-counter" codeine containing medicines in a pharmacy without a medical prescription. Principal component analysis indicated a single factor solution accounting for 75% of the variance. Factor loadings ranged from 0.83 to 0.89. Cronbach's Alpha was high (α = 0.92). Several behaviors relating to codeine use were found to significantly predict probable codeine dependence. These included: daily codeine use in the last 3 months (OR = 66.89, 95% CI = 15.8–283.18); tolerance to codeine (OR = 32.14, 95% CI = 13.82–74.75); problems with role responsibility due to intoxication (OR = 9.89, 95% CI = 4.95–19.78); having sought advice on the internet to manage codeine use (OR = 9.56, 95% CI = 4.5–20.31); history of alcohol or drug treatment (OR = 3.73, 95% CI = 1.88–7.43). Conclusions: The SDS was acceptable and feasible to use to assess probable psychological codeine dependence in an online sample of people using codeine containing medicines. SDS scores were associated with behaviors known to be indicators of codeine dependence. Studies are needed in well-defined populations of people who use codeine to test the different aspects of psychometry of the scale compared against "gold standard" criterion [a diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]