Stories of change: the text analysis of handovers in an Italian psychiatric residential care home

Abstract

Handovers assure a timely and correct information transfer while socializing workers to the service's culture; however, no study describes them as instruments to document organizational change and only a few have focused on psychiatric settings. Aim To investigate the change in the culture of an Italian psychiatric residential care home as perceived by its mental health workers (MHWs) over the course of two decades. Method Emotional text analysis (ETA) was used to analyse the MHWs' handovers completed from 1990 to 2011. Results The analysis generated four clusters and three main factors illustrating the change in the MHWs' representations of the residential care home and its occupants. The factors showed: (1) the shift from an individualistic, problem-focused view to an inclusive, community-based approach; (2) the presence of a descriptive as well as a specialized language; and (3) the presence of a double focus: on patients and professionals. Conclusions Handovers transcripts document the following changes: (1) a shift from a symptom-based to a recovery-oriented approach; (2) a modification of the MHWs values towards an holistic view of the patient; (3) a growing importance assigned to accountability, services integration and teamwork. The paper shows that handovers can be used diachronically to document organizational change.

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