The MEHCO study - version 1

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Discussion of mental health concerns in GP consultations

• IRAS ID

  295720

• Contact name

  Fiona Stevenson

• Contact email

  f.stevenson@ucl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University College London

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  Z6364106/2021/03/100 , UCL DPN

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 4 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  This study will focus on secondary analyses of data collected between 2016 and 2018, which is stored in the HaRI database (21/SW/0088).

  Mental health concerns are a significant element of the GP’s workload. These can range from relatively minor to more severe and chronic problems. Many patients only receive help with their mental health from their GP, but little is known about whether, when and how help is actually requested and provided. Previous research has demonstrated that patients have unvoiced agendas and that these agendas mainly concerned psychosocial issues. A better understanding of the management of mental health concerns in the consultation could pave the way towards an improved service for patients.
  
  This project analyses an existing dataset, namely the Harnessing resources from the internet to maximise outcomes from GP consultations (HaRI) data, to identify how mental health is raised and discussed in GP consultations. The project will use Conversation Analysis (CA) as its main method. This is a qualitative method that is concerned with the social scientific understanding of human interaction. The goal is to discover previously unknown regularities in interaction. Questions that are central during this analysis are: who initiates the talk about mental health? how and when in the consultation is this done? how is this initiation responded to? The results of this doctoral work will be used to reflect on and understand the perspective of patients and GPs on the management of mental health problems. Other qualitative method(s) (e.g. interviews or focus groups) will be used in this part of the study.

  The final part of the work will involve the identification of optimal ways, when communicating about mental health concerns in the consultation, that could be implemented in practice.
  

• REC name

  London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  21/PR/1279

• Date of REC Opinion

  14 Oct 2021

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion