The Need for Making Contact in Times of Crisis

Abstract

Descriptive studies on the experiences of service users in psychiatric emergency wards are increasing. However, the experience of users throughout the whole psychiatric emergency procedure, the ‘patient journey’ from the moment of mental health crisis leading to admission in a psychiatric inpatient unit, has rarely been studied. This article aims to make a further contribution to this body of knowledge by not only describing the service-users’ journey but also shows whether and how that perspective is received by other stakeholders like healthcare professionals, family-members, police, representatives of the municipality and ambulance staff and representatives of the municipality, to jointly make action-plans for improvement. A responsive evaluation including interviews, focus groups and dialogue session with a transformative aim was conducted in a mixed team of researchers with and without experiential knowledge. Service users and other stakeholders agree on the main issues: the importance of contact; signaling; expropriation and earning freedom. However, proposed actions differed between users and professionals. Service users proposed relational actions to offer good care. Professionals recommended actions in response to issues of fragmentation and discontinuity. We conclude that responsive evaluation can help to create a more informed and kaleidoscopic view of the complexity of psychiatric emergency care. Therefore, we recommend that various actions need to be considered to meet the needs of service users better covering all phases of Tronto’s care ethical model: caring about, taking care, caring giving and care receiving.

Boundary Objects: Engaging and Bridging Needs of People in Participatory Research by Arts-Based Methods

“…In another PHR study about emergency psychiatric care, a group of researchers and people with lived experiences organized a dialogue with people who worked in psychiatric emergency care [32][33][34]. One of the main findings was reported in "Make Contact Two of the three performances were in a small safe setting, in which the group of people without a job felt safe and invited outsiders to listen to them.…”

“…In another PHR study about emergency psychiatric care, a group of researchers and people with lived experiences organized a dialogue with people who worked in psychiatric emergency care [32][33][34]. One of the main findings was reported in "Make Contact with Me."…”

Demographic Analysis of Cancer Research Priorities and Treatment Correlations

“…Inadvertently, patients' narratives and interpretations are neglected. The existence of negative stereotypes in healthcare, particularly in psychiatry and chronic illness, can lead to the underestimation of the testimonies of patients who may not fit the traditional medical model, or who face judgments regarding their intelligence and credibility based on their language skills and discourse [26,27].…”