Service users’ experiences of acute mental health inpatient care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Service users’ experiences of acute mental health inpatient care in the UK: A qualitative study
IRAS ID
239273
Contact name
Charlotte Phillips
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
Adult inpatient mental health care is a central part of the care available to individuals experiencing acute and chronic mental health problems. Service users will often return to hospital multiple times, particularly individuals experiencing psychosis. Hospital stays can be distressing and often only provides short-term relief from individuals’ problems. To improve inpatient care and lower the chance of individuals returning to hospital, it is important to have a clear understanding of service users’ views of care.
To date there has been mixed views on how satisfied service users are with the care they received when they were in hospital and after they leave. In one study service users who had returned to hospital were asked about their views on the care they had received. They described feeling that they had been asked to leave hospital too early or late and often returned to places in the community that were stressful and unstable. However, these studies did not look at how helpful service users found the whole package of care they received, both during their hospital stay and the after-care they had before returning to hospital, in meeting their needs. Also, these studies looking at service users’ experiences of mental health hospital care have been carried out in other countries, which may be very different from the care provided in the UK.
Therefore, in the current study, service users with a psychosis-related mental health diagnosis will be interviewed about their views on the package of care they received in the NHS, both when in hospital and the care they had when they went back to the community. They will be specifically asked about how helpful this care was in supporting their recovery. This will help to identify areas where care may need to be improved to better support service users.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NW/0350
Date of REC Opinion
24 May 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion