Improving the quality of prison research: A qualitative study of ex‐offender service user involvement in prison suicide prevention research

Abstract

BackgroundSuicide is the leading cause of avoidable death in prisons worldwide and suicide prevention is an international priority. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop evidence‐based treatments. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of a novel suicide prevention psychological therapy for male prisoners. To promote ecological validity by addressing the “real‐world” situation of suicidal prisoners, we involved a consultant group of ex‐offenders with past experience of being suicidal during imprisonment. Service user involvement in prison research is challenging and underdeveloped.ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate the ex‐offender service user consultants’ experiences of being involved in the research.DesignIndividual qualitative interviews were conducted and analysed using an Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis (IPA) framework.Setting/participantsThe study was conducted at a university in North England, UK, comprising four ex‐offenders with experience of being suicidal during past imprisonments.ResultsTwo superordinate themes were identified: “Working Together” depicted participants’ perceptions of the pivotal role of good relationships with researchers, and “Journey of Change” outlined how participants’ involvement in the research impacted on their personal lives.DiscussionLittle is known about how to successfully involve ex‐offender service users in research. Our results indicate the conditions necessary for successfully engaging ex‐offender service users in research and have important implications for improving the quality of prison research.ConclusionsInvolving forensic service users in research is feasible and should be encouraged, as despite certain challenges, it is highly rewarding both for the research and the ex‐offender service users.

Competing priorities and second chances - A qualitative exploration of prisoners’ journeys through the Hepatitis C continuum of care

“…Transcripts were imported into QSR International’s NVivo 11 software (NVivo qualitative data analysis Software 2012) for coding and thematic analysis following a grounded theory approach [32,33]. This approach was chosen because prisoners are considered a hard-to-reach population and their experiences of HCV care are poorly understood and rarely reported in the published literature [34,35].…”

A psychological intervention for suicide applied to non-affective psychosis: the CARMS (Cognitive AppRoaches to coMbatting Suicidality) randomised controlled trial protocol

“…The third strength is that the psychological talking therapy, i.e., CBSPp, used in the CARMS trial is suicide focussed, personalised, and formulation driven. This psychological talking therapy is supported by evidence pertaining to acceptability, feasibility and efficaciousness from qualitative and quantitatively designed pilot work with people living in the community with psychosis, prisoners, and psychiatric inpatients [30,31,43,[107][108][109][121][122][123]. These individuals are exceptionally vulnerable to suicidal thoughts, acts and deaths because of their complex, and often severe, mental health problems.…”

“…These work streams will probe psychological mechanisms; barriers and facilitators to providing the CARMS trial intervention in the 'realworld'; implementation challenges and solutions; aspects of the therapy which were perceived as being both positive and negative; and the experiences of taking part in suicide research. It has been shown that qualitative work can often contextualise aspects of the design of trials which can remain hidden wherein aspects of interventions may, otherwise, be somewhat tacit [43,[121][122][123][124][125][126].…”

Evaluating the impact of patient and carer involvement in suicide and self‐harm research: A mixed‐methods, longitudinal study protocol

“…They also described how they reserved time at meetings for members to 'offer testament' by sharing their personal experience in relation to the research topic. Both of these publications 5,17 provide useful insight for researchers developing plans to involve people with experiential knowledge in their research.…”

“…That said, systematic reporting and evaluation of patient and public involvement (PPI) is vital to understand what works well generically and in the specific context of particular research topics. Effective PPI is of clear benefit to research,3,4 PPI members5,6 and researcher(s) 7. Yet, reporting of PPI remains inconsistent 8.…”