Safety for Recovery: Understanding how patients experience safety.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Safety for Recovery: Understanding how service users experience safety to engage in recovery as part of risk management on an acute psychiatric ward.
IRAS ID
236460
Contact name
Kris Deering
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of the West of England
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 8 months, 1 days
Research summary
STUDY AIM:
To understand how mental health patients, experience safety to engage in recovery, in order to inform more recovery-oriented risk management practices within acute psychiatric services.BACKGROUND:
Risk management in psychiatry is a framework to minimise risks, comprising of risk assessment, generation of risk management plans, alongside evaluation of interventions. Risks can be categorised as the harms that patients may inflict on themselves and/or others due to mental health difficulties; notably self-harm, suicide and violence. A criticism of risk management within psychiatric hospitals is that it can focus on reducing behaviours deemed precarious by clinicians, leading to interventions which are detrimental for patients, including physical restraint. Some have proposed that recovery which involves promoting a quality of life irrespective of mental illness can be part of risk management. For example building social relationships might reduce suicidal ideation by the patient feeling that they are a person of worth. However, risk management can generate obstacles for patient recovery, notably restricting involvement and decision-making. Hence, to understand how recovery may coalesce with risk management, this research aims to is to explore how patients feel safe, so they can engage in recovery as part of risk management. It is hoped findings can inform what aids patients to feel safer to engage in recovery as a means of reducing the risks that might have led to their admission.METHODOLOGY:
Grounded theory, a qualitative methodology will be employed as it aims to generate a theory of a unique phenomenon. This aligns to study aim, as exploring safety to engage in recovery-oriented risk management is a novel strategy for risk management. Data shapes the theory, deriving from words and sentences from the transcripts of interviews given by participants, while external information validates patterns in how these textual threads connect, for example drawing on relevant literature.REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SW/0174
Date of REC Opinion
23 Oct 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion