Measuring user and carer involvement in physical health care planning
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Greater Manchester: Preliminary validation and psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire to measure service user and carer involvement in physical health care planning in mental health services.
IRAS ID
198323
Contact name
Penny Bee
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
We are seeking ethical approval to conduct preliminary testing of a new questionnaire developed to measure service user and carer involvement in physical health care planning within mental health services. The study is connected to a wider programme of work that has identified a need to quantify the extent to which users and cares feel they have been involved in decisions about their physical health.
To check that users feel involved, we need to be able to measure involvement. A number of questionnaires have been developed, but none have been developed to quantify user involvement in physical health care planning within mental health services. In preliminary research, we spoke to users and carers about their experiences of involvement in physical health care planning. We also spoke to professionals about how they experienced involvement in practice.
User-led involvement included professionals understanding the relationship between physical health and mental health, having a transient long-term physical health care plan with active follow-up, having a care plan that is personalised, having targets that are realistic to expectations, good verbal communication between physical health and mental health practitioners, having a trusting relationship with a particular practitioner, and having access to appropriate physical health groups.
We devised questions to capture user-led involvement in physical health care planning and incorporate these into a questionnaire. We have done some preliminary testing of this questionnaire with some users and carers from an advisory group at the University to make sure it is acceptable. We would now like a lot more users and carers to complete our questionnaire. This will enable us to see whether the tool is actually measuring what it sets out to measure (that is, whether the tool is valid) and whether the tool gives consistent scores over time (that is, whether the tool is reliable).
REC name
London - West London & GTAC Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0386
Date of REC Opinion
24 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion