Metformin guideline to prevent antipsychotic induced weight gain wins Irish Healthcare Award

The article: ‘Metformin for the Prevention of Antipsychotic-Induced Weight Gain: Guideline Development and Consensus Validation’ won the best Research Paper/ Project at the Irish Healthcare Awards in November 2025.

This article was a collaboration between UCD and St John of God University Hospital and is an output from the Health Research Board funded APRO grant – ‘Achieving recovery in psychotic disorders with comprehensive clinical guidelines. The papers first and second authors, Aoife Carolan and Caroline Hynes-Ryan, are both pharmacists with St John of God University Hospital and they were supervised by Associate Professor Dolores Keating (SJOGUH) and Professor Brian O’Donoghue (UCD School of Medicine). This article details the development of the clinical guideline aimed at preventing antipsychotic induced weight gain. The article has been the most read article on Schizophrenia Bulletin and has been viewed over 50,000 since publication in late 2024. The authors recently published an invited commentary in Lancet Psychiatry on translating the evidence for using metformin to prevent antipsychotic induced weight gain.

This guideline was the first output from the HRB funded grant and the research group have two guidelines currently under review, The choice of first antipsychotic for females with a first episode of psychosis and The use of statins for the management of antipsychotic induced dyslipidaemia, both are expected to be published in 2026.

Congratulations to all those involved.