PCF and the perceived care of older people on MH inpatient wards.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Psychological Case Formulation (PCF) and the perceived care of older people on mental health inpatient wards - an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
IRAS ID
177416
Contact name
Abigail Tarran-Jones
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 1 days
Research summary
Psychological case formulation (PCF) facilitated with staff and patients and/or their carers, is a relatively novel approach used to develop person-centred inpatient interventions. PCF is a tool for summarising and integrating an array of biopsychosocial factors involved in the development and maintenance of psychological distress (British Psychological Society (BPS), 2011; Kinderman, 2005). PCF is increasingly facilitated with staff teams to promote a shared understanding of patients’ complex needs, to guide psychologically informed person-centred staff interventions and to promote patient recovery. Thus, the goals of team PCF are two-fold; i) to improve staff knowledge and skills and ii) to improve the patient care experience and patient-related outcomes.
The current PCF literature provides support for the benefit of PCF for (i) staff teams, primarily within adult mental health settings. The findings indicate that PCF increases staffs’ understanding of and empathy for their patients’ complex and challenging presentations (Berry et al., 2009; Kellett et al., 2014; Summers, 2006). Thus far the evidence-base has failed to address the impact of team PCF for the patient (ii) (Aston, 2009) e.g. how the knowledge, skills and empathy staff develop through PCF is actually translated in to patient care.
This study aims to address the aforementioned gap in the evidence-base, exploring the lived experience of PCF and PCF-informed inpatient-based care, from the perspective of inpatients of mental health services for older people (MHSOP) and their carers (BPS, 2011). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) will be used to analyse the data obtained through semi-structured interviews with patient-carer dyads. The dyad perspective aims to reflect the delivery of PCF in inpatient clinical practice (facilitated with staff and patients and/or carers). The study will provide insight into whether PCF has an impact on the patient care experience (Aston, 2009; BPS, 2011) with a view to inform and enhance clinical practice.REC name
North East - York Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NE/0219
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion