Clinician views on best practice community care for people with complex emotional needs and how it can be achieved: a qualitative study

Una Foye*, Ruth Stewart, Kylee Trevillion, Sian Oram, Dawn Allen, Eva Broeckelmann, Stephen Jeffreys, Tamar Jeynes, Mike J. Crawford, Paul A Moran, Shirley McNicholas, Jo Billings, Oliver Dale

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
63 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background
Individuals with Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) services, a working description to refer to the needs experienced by people who may have been diagnosed with a “personality disorder”, face premature mortality, high rates of co-morbidity, service user and treatment costs. Service provision for this population is recurrently identified as needing to be transformed: there are serious concerns about quality, accessibility, fragmentation of the service system and the stigma and therapeutic pessimism service users encounter. Understanding clinician perspectives is vital for service transformation, as their views and experiences shed light on potential barriers to achieving good care, and how these
might be overcome. In this study, we aimed to explore these views.

Methods
We used a qualitative interview design. A total of fifty participants from a range of professions across specialist and generic community mental health services across England who provide care to people with CEN took part in six focus groups and sixteen one-to-one interviews. We analysed the data using
a thematic approach.

Findings
Main themes were: 1) Acknowledging the heterogeneity of needs: the need for a person-centred care approach and flexibility when working with CEN, 2) ‘Still a diagnosis of exclusion’: Exploring the healthcare provider-level barriers to providing care, and 3) Understanding the exclusionary culture: exploring the system-based barriers to providing care for CEN. Across these themes, staff highlighted in particular the need for care that was person-centred, relational, empathic, and trauma informed. 3 Major barriers to achieving this are stigmatising attitudes and behaviour towards people with CEN,
especially in generic mental health services, lack of development of coherent service systems offering clear long-term pathways and ready access to high quality treatment, and lack of well-developed structures for staff training and support.

Discussion
Overall, the findings point towards clinician views as generally congruent with those of service users, reinforcing the need for priorities towards systemwide change to ensure that best practice care is provided for people with CEN. Particularly prominent is the need to put in place systemwide training
and support for clinicians working with CEN, encompassing generic and specialist services, and to challenge the stigma still experienced throughout the system.

Conclusions
Staff working with this service user group report that delivering best practice care requires services to be flexible, integrated, and sustainably funded, and for staff to be supported through ongoing training and supervision.
Original languageEnglish
Article number72
Number of pages33
JournalBMC Psychiatry
Volume22
Issue number1
Early online date28 Jan 2022
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 28 Jan 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This paper presents independent research commissioned and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme, conducted by the NIHR Policy Research Unit (PRU) in Mental Health. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or its arm’s length bodies, or other government departments. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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