Self-care and mental health in Essex
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patients’ perspectives on service development to support self-care for mild to moderate mental health conditions: a mixed-methods study
IRAS ID
209367
Contact name
Alexandros Georgiadis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Healthwatch Essex
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 11 days
Research summary
It is estimated that 1 to 6 people living in Essex will suffer a mental health problem in the course of this year; many of these people will visit a primary care professional to get advice and access mental health treatment(s). Developing services that support self-care for anxiety and depression has been proposed as a convincing alternative to professionally-led care in order to improve patients’ quality of life and confidence, and reduce the use, and therefore the cost, of healthcare services. Although self-care support has proved beneficial at a general population level, the Department of Health recommends that local healthcare professionals and decision-makers should assess the mix of different self-care support approaches best suited to their area and how to apply or integrate such support. The aim of this study is to examine how people who have received a diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression perceive self-care and how they would like to be supported by community services to practice self-care. The proposed research methodology is based on a mixed-methods research design. It will be primarily qualitative with embedded contextual quantitative analysis. Furthermore it will include a literature review, the distribution of an anonymised survey questionnaire, followed by deliberative-orientated focus groups and interviews with a purposively sampled sub-set of participants. This study will describe peoples’ attitudes and willingness to practice self-care and how community services should support the practice of self-care for people with a diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression. These descriptions should inform and contribute to the development of self-care support within the primary care organisational context, for people who are likely to be categorised as anxious and depressed both locally and nationally.
REC name
North East - York Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NE/0260
Date of REC Opinion
27 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion