7.5.1 Does who we are make a difference to the research that we do? Service user researchers and a study of the ‘lived experience of detained psychiatric patients’ (197)

Mary Chambers, Professor of Mental Health Nursing in the Faculty of Health & Social Care Sciences, St. George’s University of London / Director, Centre for Clinical Leadership and Interprofessional Practice at South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, Kingston University and St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom Co authors: Steve Gillard, Rohan Borschmann, Kati Turner, Kath Lovell & Norman Goodrich-Purnell

Abstract:

Nursing research has an historical tradition of critical, collaborative research (Benner 1994). Public and service user involvement in the research process has become a political and governance requirement for health service research in the UK. There is awareness of issues of capacity building in service user involvement in nursing research (Maslin-Prothero, 2003) and the potential contribution of service user involvement to mental health research (Trivedi & Wykes, 2002). However, no studies have measured the impact of service user researchers on research findings and, consequently, on developments in practice informed by this research. Three service user researchers were employed as part of a multi-disciplinary team, including a nurse, a psychologist, and a health services researcher. The team carried out an action research project exploring experiences of care of psychiatric inpatients, detained under the Mental Health Act (1983), at three south London hospitals. A practice development intervention for ward staff was developed from data collected and a pilot intervention evaluated. Initial in-depth qualitative interviews were held with 19 patients, interviews carried out by different combinations of service user and academic researchers. Preliminary analysis of interview transcripts was then undertaken independently by all members of the multi-disciplinary team. Secondary content analyses were indicative of clear differences in the range of follow-up questions employed by different researchers, and also of different interpretations of the same interview texts in the analysis stage. These findings will be presented, along with a discussion of the potential impact of service user involvement on research outputs and practice development, informed by the experiences of the service user researchers themselves. This evidence suggests that it is possible to move with confidence beyond tokenistic service user involvement to a genuine collaborative research that is productive of richer data and interpretative analyses, fully integrating the service user experience into practice development.

Biography:

Professor Mary Chambers is Professor of Mental Health Nursing at St. George’s University of London and Kingston University and Director of the centre for Clinical Leadership and Interprofessional Practice at South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. Throughout her career she has held a number of clinical, academic and managerial positions including Chief Nurse at South West London and St. George’s, Professor of Mental Health Nursing at University or Ulster and Senior Research Fellow at Royal College of Nursing, Research Institute. Her area of clinical practice is cognitive behavioural psychotherapy and research interests are mental health nursing, user involvement and health care informatics. She is a member of a number of editorial boards and research review bodies nationally and internationally.