UnSeen mixed methods study: qualitative part
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding Services for people with Complex Mental Health Difficulties (UnSeen): a mixed methods study to produce an implementation toolkit - QUALITATIVE PART ONLY
IRAS ID
313165
Contact name
Phillip Oliver
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 30 days
Research summary
We want to improve the way GPs work with specialist services to help people with complex mental health difficulties. By complex mental health difficulties, we mean repeated episodes of anxiety and depression, with long-term unpredictable changes in mood and difficulties in relationships. Many people with complex mental health difficulties have had difficult childhoods. Some have had difficulties with drugs and alcohol, and some repeatedly experience thoughts of harming themselves. Complex mental health difficulties increase the risk of suicide and accidental harm. People with complex mental health difficulties are often missed by NHS services that focus on either the most severe mental disorders (e.g., psychosis) or simpler ones (uncomplicated anxiety or depression). Recently new services have been launched for people with complex mental health difficulties. In this research we will find out how people with complex mental health difficulties are recognised by GPs and how general practices should work with new services to provide them with joined-up care. We will do this, firstly by conducting qualitative interviews with patients and their general practitioners and secondly through developing search strategies within electronic health care records to identify such patients. This work will then be brought together to produce an implementation toolkit - a type of recipe book for best practice - for use in general practice. This application concerns the qualitative interview part of the project.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/EM/0099
Date of REC Opinion
12 May 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion