Relationship between risk assessment and therapeutic relationship
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How do mental health service-users understand the relationship between the risk assessment process and the therapeutic alliance in a community mental health setting?
IRAS ID
145325
Contact name
Annette Murphy
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 29 days
Research summary
Risk-assessment in mental health services is a legal and professional obligation that provides an opportunity for collaborative information-gathering, however evidence suggests that risk-assessment is not always perceived by service-users as a positive process. The therapeutic alliance has been outlined as being a crucial element of successful therapy and it is possible that if risk-assessment is experienced as a difficult event there will be a negative impact on the alliance. It is also possible that talking about risk may enhance the alliance. In the absence of direct evidence relating to risk-assessment and the therapeutic relationship this study aims to conduct an in-depth, exploratory, qualitative study to discover whether risk-assessment has an impact on the therapeutic alliance and how this relationship is perceived by service-users.
Six mental health service-users who are currently under the care of a Community Mental Health Recovery Service (CMHRS) will be recruited for interview via referrals from their Care Coordinator. Open-ended, in-depth interviews will be conducted that aim to understand risk-assessment from the world view of the service-user. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) will be used to analyse the data and this will allow the researcher to explore the idiographic meaning making a participant attributes to particular experiences.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0035
Date of REC Opinion
2 Feb 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion