SNAP in Mental Health

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Adapting and operationalising SNAP (the Support Needs Approach for Patients) for acute mental health settings

• IRAS ID

  320312

• Contact name

  Morag Farquhar

• Contact email

  M.Farquhar@uea.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of East Anglia (UEA)

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 3 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  Research Summary
  Health care should be driven by patients’ needs. This is known as “person-centred care.” The NHS recommends it, but there is little guidance on how to provide it. Our team developed a way to do this called Support Needs Approach for Patients (SNAP: https://thesnap.org.uk/). SNAP uses a tool (a booklet called the “How are you?” Booklet, containing a set of questions to help patients think about areas where they need more support) and a focused conversation between the patient and healthcare professional to help address those needs.
  SNAP was first developed for patients with chronic lung disease and is now being used to enable person-centred conversations for patients with a range of chronic physical conditions. The usefulness of SNAP for patients with mental health conditions has not been explored. It may be relevant for this group, however, as it is a holistic intervention – that means it considers the whole person, taking into account emotional and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of a disease. It does this, in particular, through the range of questions in the “How are you?” Booklet (the SNAP Tool).
  Healthcare professionals from acute mental health settings have seen the potential for using SNAP with their patients (“to ensure we are being holistic in our assessments”) but noted that the SNAP Tool might require adaptation for this group. We also need to find the best way to deliver SNAP’s person-centred process in acute mental health settings. To do this we will work with service users with experience of being an inpatient in an acute mental health hospital, and healthcare professionals from the setting, in a series of focus groups and workshops to adapt the SNAP Tool and SNAP’s person-centred process for acute mental health. The study is funded by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration.

  Summary of Results
  Background We had developed a short set of questions to help people identify and discuss their concerns (support needs) with health care staff. The questions sit in a booklet called the "How are you?" Booklet and form part of the Support Needs Approach for Patients
  (SNAP: https://scanmail.trustwave.com/?c=261&d=hM6d5T-iLDmlRvCslFYWKQhuI2n6s-2eybeC-N5ZxQ&u=https%3a%2f%2fu2790089%2ect%2esendgrid%2enet%2fls%2fclick%3fupn%3dXv3JSvJ-2B3M71ppf7N9agbVs63yvfJSFk-2BtZ1QmjoB-2BFR324-2FKKaljJxzee3LbeFWwpHP%5fE1aO2-2BZlVOSJJV-2FajQqskegTd6IRomHYTi-2Fbt8SH3YJxUR9cbKWGPHWFsECNaoDfN-2FPtgVyvDnjzs-2Fg80f-2BUFWEbHKCH2rI4xPY-2FMyVEib-2FYEK0z1PontzKyE6Sm-2BZjW46w2SEpJjvO07je0ikfFmlVZmLHiVy7OOuHnVDZjjbivQPlILj-2FpLYBhkl-2FSgKKHzsyoPFd7qtsu9kBg9lwJuQ-3D-3D

  However, the questions were not developed for people with mental health conditions, so we worked with mental health service users to adapt the questions and the booklet, and to think about how they could be used in practice.

  What did we do (and find) in the study?
  We ran three activities:
  1. Focus Groups with service users. This involved: 1) looking at the original 15 questions in the booklet and talking about whether they were relevant for service users, whether they needed adapting, or whether any questions needed adding, and 2) starting to think about how they could be used in practice within the Support Needs Approach for Patients (SNAP).
  - Key finding: Service users felt we needed to change the wording on some of the questions and add one extra question

  2. Workshop with service users. This involved looking at the findings from the focus groups and: 1) working together to adapt the questions and develop new ones, and 2) thinking further about how SNAP might work in practice.
  - Key finding: Together we adapted six of the 15 original questions in the booklet (including splitting one of those questions into two) and added the extra question - the booklet now has 17 questions

  3. Focus group with clinicians. This involved: 1) sharing the newly adapted set of questions, and 2) sharing and exploring service users' ideas about how SNAP might work in practice.
  - Key finding: Clinicians thought SNAP, with the newly adapted questions, could help open and guide conversations

  How did we use service users' ideas and thoughts?
  We used service users' ideas and thoughts to produce:
  * A new version of the "How are you?" Booklet to help people with mental health conditions to identify and discuss their concerns with health care staff
  * Ideas on how SNAP, using the booklet and newly adapted questions, could work in practice

  What next?
  We have started a follow-on study that will involve a new set of people with recent experience of mental health services to help us check that the questions (and the booklet) work for other mental health service users. It will then be available for use in practice.

• REC name

  Wales REC 4

• REC reference

  22/WA/0351

• Date of REC Opinion

  14 Dec 2022

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion