The UNITED study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
UNderstanding and Improving Therapeutic Engagement between nurses and patients on acute mental health wards: a feasibility and evaluation study of Experience-Based Co-Design
IRAS ID
229478
Contact name
Niall McCrae
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
We have known for a long time that patients in an acute inpatient mental health setting appreciate spending time with their nurses and like to feel listened to and understood by clinicians. Such therapeutic interaction is beneficial for inpatients’ outcomes and for nurses’ job satisfaction. Despite this, research shows us that as little as 4-12% of nurses’ time is spent on activities that can be considered therapeutic. Therefore, it is imperative we find ways of improving the amount of time patients spend with their nurses.
Patients tell us that they experience inpatient wards as “un-therapeutic” and “frightening”; all at a time when there is an escalating demand for inpatient services. Improving patient experience is a priority for mental health services, and the NHS as a whole. To do this we need both a better understanding of what it is like to be a patient and also to give patients opportunities to directly influence and design services in ways sensitive to their needs.
Experience-based co-design (EBCD) is an approach that brings local patients and staff together, in a series of events, to co-design and improve services in partnership with each other. It has been successfully used to redesign an inpatient mental health service and reduce formal complaints, and in a chemotherapy outpatient setting to develop an intervention to support carers who are looking after their friends and family members. However it has never been used to co-design an intervention to improve the amount and quality of therapeutic time that mental health nurses spend with their patients.
Therefore we aim to test whether patients and staff can come together to co-design and implement an intervention to improve therapeutic engagement within an inpatient mental health ward. And examine what makes EBCD and the resulting intervention work.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/2193
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jan 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion