Realist synthesis of community mental health crisis services
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A realist synthesis to explain how, for whom and in what circumstances different community mental health crisis services work.
IRAS ID
261486
Contact name
Nicola Clibbens
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Health & Social Care NHSFT & NHS Sheffield CCG
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
CRD42019141680, Prospero registration
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 30 days
Research summary
Mental health crises are distressing and can be life threatening. Mental health hospital care is hard to access, unpopular, and is costly for the NHS. Over recent years, community crisis care services have been developed. Whilst they may offer more choice, it can be difficult for people to understand what each service offers. We seek to understand and explain these differences. Our research will ask ‘How do mental health crisis services work, for whom and in what circumstances?’ We will answer this question using a realist evidence synthesis, a type of literature review supported by interview data which tries to understand how services work. The review will be guided by a mixed group of experts including health and social care professionals, health commissioners, managers, voluntary sector, peer-support workers, people with lived experience and carers. The steps we will take are; 1) Carry out a broad review to identify initial (programme) theories- these are our informed ‘hunches’ about how things are supposed to work; 2) Test our initial programme theories (hunches) through more focused reviews and interviews with stakeholders; 3) Bring together the findings from our reviews to reach new ideas about how crisis services work, for whom and when; 4) Explore if broader theories can explain crisis services; and 5) Identify UK crisis service case studies providing examples of these theories. Our expert group will make a short film to summarise the findings from the research and this will be shared on research team organisational websites to reach a wide audience. The review will be used to guide health services commissioners to design crisis care based on what works best for people across services and providers. We will use the review to support further research into crisis care.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/YH/0347
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jan 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion