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Background: Routinely-collected mental health data could deliver novel insights for mental health research. However, patients' willingness to share their mental health data remains largely unknown. We investigated factors influencing likelihood of sharing these data for research purposes amongst people with and without experience of mental illness., Methods: We collected responses from a diverse sample of UK National Health Service (NHS) users (n = 2187) of which about half (n = 1087) had lifetime experience of mental illness. Ordinal logistic regression was used to examine the influence of demographic factors, clinical service experience, and primary mental illness on willingness to share mental health data, contrasted against physical health data., Results: There was a high level of willingness to share mental (89.7%) and physical (92.8%) health data for research purposes. Higher levels of satisfaction with the NHS were associated with greater willingness to share mental health data. Furthermore, people with personal experience of mental illness were more willing than those without to share mental health data, once the variable of NHS satisfaction had been controlled for. Of the mental illnesses recorded, people with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), personality disorder or bipolar disorder were significantly more likely to share their mental health data than people without mental illness., Conclusions: These findings suggest that positive experiences of health services and personal experience of mental illness are associated with greater willingness to share mental health data. NHS satisfaction is a potentially modifiable factor that could foster public support for increased use of NHS mental health data in research., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Competing Interests: SMc reports institutional funding from NHS Digital, outside of this Comment. TN-D reports that they are an author of the Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2020 Survey report and has two applications submitted to NHS Digital for access to survey data. JDM reports grants from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHIR), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Health Foundation, outside of this Comment. PBJ reports salary support from the Higher Education Funding Council through the University of Cambridge and from the NHS. TFol reports employment by NHS Digital, outside of this Comment. All other authors declare no competing interests. KLM is funded by the NIHR Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust Biomedical Research Centre. JDM is partly supported by the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health at King's College London (ESRC reference ES/S012567/1), a jointly funded clinical fellowship from the Health Foundation and Academy of Medical Sciences, and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. JD and JDM are partly supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. MF was funded by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Oxford and Thames Valley at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. AR is supported by an NIHR advanced fellowship (NIHR300591). KF received funding from Place2Be, Research England's Strategic Priorities Fund, and the ESRC postdoctoral fellowship scheme (ES/V011936/1). AJ is funded by MQ and the Medical Research Council. TN-D is supported by an NIHR advanced fellowship (NIHR300056). The views expressed in this Comment are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the ESRC, the Department of Health and Social Care, or NHS Digital. We are grateful for MQ's support in organising the series of teleconferences and workshops that resulted in the content of this Comment. In particular, we thank Eva Wölbert and Peter B Jones for facilitating the workshop, Sarah Shenow for supporting the survey of researchers' experiences and helping to refine the implementation actions required in the sector, Abigail Russell for leading the survey, Taj Sallamuddin for his advice on the impact of the GDPR on delays in accessing data and for improving figure 1 in our appendix, and our contacts at NHS Digital for supporting the workshop and providing invaluable comments and advice.