Clinical decision making by practitioners

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    How do practitioners on Burns Wards make clinical decisions regarding psychological treatment?

  • IRAS ID

    256433

  • Contact name

    Alexandra Bonney

  • Contact email

    acb875@student.bham.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Head of Research Governance and Integrity

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 8 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Decision making is an essential part of practitioner practice. Practitioners must consider many competing factors when deciding the best process for the patient and their family. Many of these decisions have to be made in an intense environment, where life changing decisions have to be made quickly. It is understood that practitioners have established good decision making through their experience and prior training. However, what is not known is how competent practitioners are at making clinical decisions when regarding psychological treatment. Burns patients have a high likelihood of needing psychological treatment to help adjust to their new way of living. It is unknown how practitioners chose to refer patients for psychological treatment, as well as what signs and symptoms are they looking out for? In light of this, this research proposes to conduct semi-structured interviews with practitioners on the clinical decision making when referring patients and family members for psychological treatment. It is also wanting to interview parents of the children on the Burns Ward at Birmingham Children’s Hospital about the decision making of the practitioners and the involvement of them in those decisions. By conducting this research it will help identify any areas of decision making that the practitioners lack and help implement training to improve the service for both the practitioners and the patients.

  • REC name

    West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/WM/0085

  • Date of REC Opinion

    14 May 2019

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion