Psychosocial Health Education Within Community Mental Health Inpatient Recovery Wards In UK: Patients’ Voices

Abstract

Societies include people vulnerable to mental health distress; such people may find themselves detained. Mental health recovery wards seek to rehabilitate individuals who suffer severe, and enduring mental health distress, through community living, to re-establish, or learn new life-skills. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended more structured group activity to improve interpersonal functioning, including psychologically informed approaches. Psychosocial health education is qualified teacher-led, rather than psychoeducation, psychology, or interventions implemented by other health professionals, peer support workers, or storytelling by patients to each other. This study outlines patients’ evaluations of psychosocial education within inpatient recovery/rehabilitation wards during 2016-2021. Patients (87%; n=82) who opted to attend 12 courses, provided anonymous voices through use of a numerical rating scale, manuscript written free text (n=93), and completed a short questionnaire (n=10), across two National Health Service (NHS) wards in the West Midlands, England, UK. Patients’ voices were qualitatively analysed thematically. Ten distinguished themes suggested that psychosocial education was interesting, enjoyable, sociable, transformative, of decent quality, and projected to be of much benefit to patients’ future lives. Ratings (n=270) were hierarchically analysed using GENSTAT to distinguish patients’ preferences. Preferences for courses from patients’ voices were exercise and mental health, wellness planning, feelings and emotions, Tai chi, mood and food, steps to confidence, stress busting, hearing voices, peer recovery, self-esteem, motivation, and bite size psychology. Patients believed education, with goal setting supported by all staff, provided new embedded knowledge, applicable to integration into society, with improved interpersonal functioning.