Staff and service user mentalization
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An exploration into how individuals with Psychosis and the staff supporting them, conceptualise the difficulties associated with this diagnosis.
IRAS ID
234770
Contact name
Laura Corfield
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 26 days
Research summary
How do staff working with individuals with Psychosis and the service-users themselves make sense of the difficulties associated with Psychosis? How does this impact the care given and how can ‘mentalization’ help us to understand how and why this might happen?
Background
Mental health policies promote the importance of patient-led collaborative care. Despite this, individuals with Psychosis can be excluded from important treatment decisions ultimately resulting in service-user’s disengaging from services and poorer treatment outcomes. Mentalization is a psychological process that might help us to understand why.
Mentalization is the reflective capacity of an individual to recognise mental states in oneself and others, thinking about interactions as motivated by these mental states e.g. thoughts, beliefs, feelings and intents. Mentalization allows individuals to understand and accept the limits to their own understanding. Effective mentalizing within mental health services could lead to more positive relationships between staff and service users which can lead to better treatment outcomes.Method
Participants: Multi-disciplinary staff who work with individuals with Psychosis will be recruited from NHS Lothian, Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) and Child and Adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Service users seeking support for Psychosis, from the aforementioned services, will also be recruited.
Process: All participants will undertake two short self-report measures (one on attachment and one on reflective functioning). Mentalization and individuals understanding of Psychosis will then be explored through conducting 1:1 semi-structured interviews (the assessment process is anticipated to take 2 hours in total).Aims and analysis
This study will use a grounded theory approach to analyse the data and develop a theory into staff and service-users mentalizing capacity, how they make sense of ‘Psychosis’ and how this impacts models of care.REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
17/WS/0254
Date of REC Opinion
6 Dec 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion