Mental Health Care
The mental health group is led by Dr Joy Duxbury. The group aims to develop programmatic research activity across a number of key themes that are underpinned by close working relationships with a range of stakeholders. The core areas of research include patient aggression in mental health in-patient settings, service user and carer experiences; the arts and social inclusion and commissioning in mental health services. Each includes the development of therapeutic interventions and roles that address and promote service delivery and relationships. The majority of our research is service driven and focuses on organisational working, development and evaluation pertaining to new ways of working and different approaches to care.
The group’s strengths are grounded in research on:
- the experiences and rights of those receiving care across a range of mental health and social care services including acute, secure and older peoples settings
- the exploration and management of aggressive behaviour in hospital settings
- Medication management in acute care mental health settings
- Supporting service development and commissioning
- Developing and evidencing new methods to investigate impact and outcomes of interventions and service innovations with an emphasis on service user engagement.
Key activities in this grouping concern service users’ and carers’ experiences some of which is underpinned by a grant awarded from internal funds (£300k) to source a Community Engagement and Service User and carer Support project (COMENSUS). This is now gaining international recognition.
Our strategy is to develop further this portfolio of research on in inpatient mental health care, whilst maintaining a specific service user and carer focus that builds on the work of and to further enhance its reputation for methodological tools that can be used with service users in researching therapeutic relationships. For example the development of the Management of Aggression and Violence Attitude Scale (MAVAS) has been significant in facilitating improvements in the therapeutic milieu of acute in-patient care. The practical aim of research using this tool has been to inform health care professionals about clients’ experiences that may lead to non-therapeutic behaviours. A funded project to examine nurse-patient relationships in the administration of medication in acute settings furthers the principles of this theme focusing upon a second key intervention in the inpatient environment. This also demonstrates a particular depth of expertise to instrument development and validation including the Ward Administration of Medication Schedule (WAMS). Further work examining the use of arts and its impact on social inclusion including development of new instruments in mental health and community settings compliments an overarching theme of evidence based investigation into therapeutic contexts. A project involving the use of complementary therapies in mental health has been recently conducted, reflecting our commitment to researching a breadth of mental health interventions.
The research within this group is strongly collaborative. We are committed to developing partnerships with service providers and this is reflected in recent conjoint grant applications in the above areas of practice and successful Knowledge Transfer Partnerships examining PCT commissioning and ethnicity and health issues pertaining to inpatient care.
