Rate My Professor Chrissie Muirhead

Chrissie Muirhead is a Nurse in the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch, within the Division of Health Sciences. She plays a vital role in clinical research on innovative treatments for severe mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her work supports multidisciplinary teams led by academic staff such as Associate Professor Ben Beaglehole and Professor Richard Porter, Head of Department.

Muirhead is a co-author on several peer-reviewed articles published in prestigious journals. In 2025, she contributed to Beaglehole et al.'s 'Ketamine for treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder: double-blind active-controlled randomised crossover study' in BJPsych Open, which explored ketamine's efficacy in a controlled trial for patients unresponsive to standard therapies. That same year, Beaglehole et al. published 'Six weeks open-label oral ketamine for patients with treatment-resistant depression' in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, reporting on open-label treatment outcomes. Additionally, Douglas et al.'s 'Impact of Activation Therapy for Inpatients With Major Depression on Cognition: An Exploratory Analysis' appeared in Bipolar Disorders, analyzing cognitive effects of activation therapy.

Further contributions include Odering et al. (2025) 'Predicting Cognitive Change During Treatment for Inpatient Affective Disorders,' examining cognitive trajectories in mood disorder patients. In 2024, Beaglehole et al.'s 'Ketamine for treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder: Double-blind active-controlled crossover study' was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, assessing ketamine against an active control in OCD patients.

She is acknowledged as a research nurse in key protocols, such as Beaglehole et al. (2024) randomised controlled trial of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression in BMJ Open, and Douglas et al. (2022) randomised controlled trial of Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy and group-based Cognitive Remediation versus Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy alone for mood disorders in BMC Psychiatry.

Muirhead is part of the support team for Yaanu nahey?, the Somali component of The 15 March Project at the University of Otago, aiding research on the impacts of the Christchurch mosque attacks. She also authored 'A pandemic within our borders, but what about the impact on our mental health workforce?' (2021) in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, discussing COVID-19 effects on mental health staff.