Walking a fine line: managing the tensions associated with medication non-adherence in an acute inpatient psychiatric setting

Development and evaluation of a de-escalation training intervention in adult acute and forensic units: the EDITION systematic review and feasibility trial

Background

Containment (e.g. physical restraint and seclusion) is used frequently in mental health inpatient settings. Containment is associated with serious psychological and physical harms. De-escalation (psychosocial techniques to manage distress without containment) is recommended to manage aggression and other unsafe behaviours, for example self-harm. All National Health Service staff are trained in de-escalation but there is little to no evidence supporting training's effectiveness.

Objectives

Objectives were to: (1) qualitatively investigate de-escalation and identify barriers and facilitators to use across the range of adult acute and forensic mental health inpatient settings; (2) co-produce with relevant stakeholders an intervention to enhance de-escalation across these settings; (3) evaluate the intervention's preliminary effect on rates of conflict (e.g. violence, self-harm) and containment (e.g. seclusion and physical restraint) and understand barriers and facilitators to intervention effects.

Design

Intervention development informed by Experience-based Co-design and uncontrolled pre and post feasibility evaluation. Systematic reviews and qualitative interviews investigated contextual variation in use and effects of de-escalation. Synthesis of this evidence informed co-design of an intervention to enhance de-escalation. An uncontrolled feasibility trial of the intervention followed. Clinical outcome data were collected over 24 weeks including an 8-week pre-intervention phase, an 8-week embedding and an 8-week post-intervention phase.

Setting

Ten inpatient wards (including acute, psychiatric intensive care, low, medium and high secure forensic) in two United Kingdom mental health trusts.

Participants

In-patients, clinical staff, managers, carers/relatives and training staff in the target settings.

Interventions

Enhancing de-escalation techniques in adult acute and forensic units: Development and evaluation of an evidence-based training intervention (EDITION) interventions included de-escalation training, two novel models of reflective practice, post-incident debriefing and feedback on clinical practice, collaborative prescribing and ward rounds, practice changes around admission, shift handovers and the social and physical environment, and sensory modulation and support planning to reduce patient distress.

Main outcome measures

Outcomes measured related to feasibility (recruitment and retention, completion of outcome measures), training outcomes and clinical and safety outcomes. Conflict and containment rates were measured via the Patient-Staff Conflict Checklist. Clinical outcomes were measured using the Attitudes to Containment Measures Questionnaire, Attitudes to Personality Disorder Questionnaire, Violence Prevention Climate Scale, Capabilities, Opportunities, and Motivation Scale, Coercion Experience Scale and Perceived Expressed Emotion in Staff Scale.

Results

Completion rates of the proposed primary outcome were very good at 68% overall (excluding remote data collection), which increased to 76% (excluding remote data collection) in the post-intervention period. Secondary outcomes had high completion rates for both staff and patient respondents. Regression analyses indicated that reductions in conflict and containment were both predicted by study phase (pre, embedding, post intervention). There were no adverse events or serious adverse events related to the intervention.

Conclusions

Intervention and data-collection procedures were feasible, and there was a signal of an effect on the proposed primary outcome.

Limitations

Uncontrolled design and self-selecting sample.

Future work

Definitive trial determining intervention effects.

Trial registration

This trial is registered as ISRCTN12826685 (closed to recruitment).

Funding

This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme (NIHR award ref: 16/101/02) and is published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 28, No. 3. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Context

Conflict (a term used to describe a range of potentially unsafe events including violence, self-harm, rule-breaking, medication refusal, illicit drug and alcohol use and absconding) in mental health settings causes serious physical and psychological harm. Containment interventions which are intended to minimise harm from violence (and other conflict behaviours) such as restraint, seclusion and rapid tranquilisation can result in serious injuries to patients and, occasionally, death. Involvement in physical restraint is the most common cause of serious physical injury to National Health Service mental health staff in the United Kingdom. Violence to staff results in substantial costs to the health service in sickness and litigation payments. Containment interventions are also expensive (e.g. physical restraint costs mental health services £6.1 million and enhanced observations £88 million per annum). Despite these harms, recent findings indicate containment interventions such as seclusion and physical restraint continue to be used frequently in mental health settings. Clinical trials have demonstrated that interventions can reduce containment without increasing violence and other conflict behaviours (e.g. verbal aggression, self-harm). Substantial cost-savings result from reducing containment use. De-escalation, as an intervention to manage aggression and potential violence without restrictive practices, is a core intervention. 'De-escalation' is a collective term for a range of psychosocial techniques designed to reduce distress and anger without the need to use 'containment' interventions (measures to prevent harm through restricting a person's ability to act independently, such as physical restraint and seclusion). Evidence indicates that de-escalation involves ensuring conditions for safe intervention and effective communication are established, clarifying and attempting to resolve the patient's concern, conveyance of respect and empathy and regulating unhelpful emotions such as anxiety and anger. Despite featuring prominently in clinical guidelines and training policy domestically and internationally and being a component of mandatory National Health Service training, there is no evidence-based model on which to base training. A systematic review of de-escalation training effectiveness and acceptability conducted in 2015 concluded: (1) no model of training has demonstrated effectiveness in a sufficiently rigorous evaluation, (2) the theoretical underpinning of evaluated models was often unclear and (3) there has been inadequate investigation of the characteristics of training likely to enhance acceptability and uptake. Despite all National Health Service staff being trained in de-escalation there have been no high-quality trials evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of training. Feasibility studies are needed to establish whether it is possible to conduct a definitive trial that can determine the clinical, safety and cost-effectiveness of this intervention.

Psychometric evaluation of the German version of the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC)

Background

Healthcare professionals can be a source of stigma and discrimination for people with mental illness, and anti-stigma programs are needed for this target group. However, there is no validated German language scale to assess attitudes of healthcare professionals towards people with mental illness. This study had the aim to validate the German language version of the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC), a self-report measure of stigmatizing attitudes.

Methods

Staff (n=392) on general psychiatric inpatient wards (excluding child, forensic and geriatric psychiatry) at five psychiatric hospitals in Switzerland (n=3) and Germany (n=2) participated in the study. The internal consistency of the OMS-HC was examined as well as its factor structure using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. To assess the scales concurrent validity, we used the Social Distance Scale.

Results

Internal consistency for the OMS-HC total score was good (=0.74), acceptable for the subscales Attitudes (=0.62) and Social Distance (=0.69), and poor for the Disclosure subscale (=0.55). The original three-factor structure fit our data well. The OMS-HC total score and the Social Distance subscale score were significantly correlated with the Social Distance Scale, supporting concurrent validity.

Conclusion

The German version of the OMS-HC demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties and can be recommended for future research and intervention evaluation.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-021-00592-9.

International research into 22 years of use of chemical restraint: An evidence overview

BACKGROUND

Chemical restraint (CR) (also known as rapid tranquilisation) is the forced (non-consenting) administration of medications to manage uncontrolled aggression, anxiety, or violence in people who are likely to cause harm to themselves or others. Our population of interest was adults with mental health disorders (with/without substance abuse). There has been a growing international movement over the past 22 years towards reducing/eliminating restrictive practices such as CR. It is appropriate to summarise the research that has been published over this time, identify trends and gaps in knowledge, and highlight areas for new research to inform practice.

AIMS

To undertake a comprehensive systematic search to identify, and describe, the volume and nature of primary international research into CR published since 1995.

METHODS

This paper reports the processes and overall findings of a systematic search for all available primary research on CR published between 1 January 1996 and 31 July 2018. It describes the current evidence base by hierarchy of evidence, country (ies) producing the research, CR definitions, study purpose, and outcome measures.

RESULTS

This review identified 311 relevant primary studies (21 RCTs; 46 non-controlled experimental or prospective observational studies; 77 cross-sectional studies; 69 retrospective studies; 67 opinion pieces, position or policy statements; and 31 qualitative studies). The USA, UK, and Australia contributed over half the research, whilst cross-country collaborations comprised 6% of it. The most common research settings comprised acute psychiatric wards (23.3%), general psychiatric wards (21.6%), and general hospital emergency departments (19.0%).

DISCUSSION

A key lesson learnt whilst compiling this database of research into CR was to ensure that all papers described non-consenting administration of medications to manage adults with uncontrolled aggression, anxiety, or violence. There were tensions in the literature between using effective CR without producing adverse events, and how to decide when CR was needed (compared with choosing non-chemical intervention for behavioural emergencies), respecting patients' dignity whilst safeguarding their safety, and preserving safe workplaces for staff, and care environments for other patients. The range of outcome measures suggests opportunities to standardise future research.

Fear and blame in mental health nurses' accounts of restrictive practices: Implications for the elimination of seclusion and restraint

Restrictive practices continue to be used in mental health care despite increasing recognition of their harms and an international effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate their use. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore mental health nurses' views of the potential elimination of these practices. Nine focus groups were conducted with 44 mental health nurses across Australia, and the data analysed using thematic analysis. Overall, the nurses expressed significant fear about the potential elimination of restrictive practices and saw themselves as being blamed for both the use of these practices and the consequences should they be eliminated. Findings detail the conflicts facing staff in balancing the need for ward safety for everyone present while at the same time providing person-centred care. Nurses described the changing role of the mental health nurse in acute settings, being more focussed on risk assessment and medication while at the same time attempting to practise in trauma-informed person-centred ways. The impact on ward safety with increasing acuity of consumers plus the presence of forensic consumers and those affected by methamphetamine was emphasized. Change initiatives need to take into account nurses' deep concerns about the consequences of eliminating all forms of control measures in hospitals and respond to the symptoms and behaviours consumers present with and associated unpredictable and concerning behaviours. Attempts to eliminate restrictive practices should, therefore, be carefully considered and come with a clear articulation of alternatives to ensure the safety of consumers, visitors, and staff.

Nursing documentation in inpatient psychiatry: The relevance of nurse-patient interactions in progress notes-A focus group study with mental health staff

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To gain insight into mental health staff's perception of writing progress notes in an acute and subacute psychiatric ward context.

BACKGROUND

The nursing process structures nursing documentation. Progress notes are intended to be an evaluation of a patient's nursing diagnoses, interventions and outcomes. Within this template, a patient's status and the care provided are to be recorded. The therapeutic nurse-patient relationship is recognised as a key component of psychiatric care today. At the same time, the biomedical model remains strong. Research literature exploring nursing staff's experiences with writing progress notes in psychiatric contexts, and especially the space given to staff-patient relations, is sparse.

DESIGN

Qualitative design.

METHODS

Focus group interviews with mental health staff working in one acute and one subacute psychiatric ward were conducted. Systematic text condensation, a method for transverse thematic analysis, was used.

RESULTS

Two main categories emerged from the analysis: the position of the professional as an expert and distant observer in the progress notes, and the weak position of professional-patient interactions in progress notes.

CONCLUSIONS

The participants did not perceive that the current recording model, which is based on the nursing process, supported a focus on patients' resources or reporting professional-patient interactions. This model appeared to put ward staff in an expert position in relation to patients, which made it challenging to involve patients in the recording process. Essential aspects of nursing care related to recovery and person-centred care were not prioritised for documentation.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

This study contributes to the critical examination of the documentation praxis, as well as to the critical examination of the documentation tool as to what is considered important to document.

Models of care delivery in mental health nursing practice: a mixed method study

The aim of this study was to identify the conceptual models that underpin mental health nursing care in clinical settings. This study is a modification of a previous study which evaluated the influence of implicit models of mental disorder on processes of decision making within community-based teams. Participants completed questionnaires in response to a scenario. A range of explanatory conceptual models were identified in respect to aetiology, treatment and recovery. In a forced choice the participants ranked a medical model of care above other models as underpinning care delivery. The content analysis found that the participants used a psychodynamic framework for understanding the causes of mental distress but described the nursing interventions in terms of supporting a medical model of care. Nursing care is dominated by a medical model which constrains mental health nursing. This potentially creates tension between what nurses believe to be the problem and the responses available for nurses in their clinical setting. A range of psychosocial approaches to mental health care delivery have been developed, but there seems to be problems with their implementation in practice. Further research is required to explore how broader therapeutic interventions can be implemented by nurses within multidisciplinary systems of mental health care delivery.

Patients' reports of the factors influencing medication adherence in bipolar disorder - an integrative review of the literature

BACKGROUND

As with other long-term conditions patients with bipolar disorder are rarely totally adherent or non-adherent. Rates of non-adherence have not changed since the first introduction of psychotropic medications in the 1950s despite vast numbers of new compounds being marketed. Non-adherence with medication in bipolar disorder is associated with affective relapse and consequently poor quality of life. The reasons that patients are non-adherent with medication are not well understood by clinicians who often assume it is related to the illness itself.

OBJECTIVES

To identify patients' perceptions of medication adherence in bipolar disorder.

DESIGN

An integrated review of the literature published between 1999 and 2010.

DATA SOURCES

Ovid (Medline, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO) and manual searching.

REVIEW METHODS

An integrative review of the literature was conducted which included: (a) problem formation, (b) literature search and initial screening, (c) gathering data from studies, (d) evaluating study quality, (e) data analysis and integration, (f) data interpretation, and (g) presentation of the findings.

RESULTS

Thirteen articles met criteria for inclusion in the review. These articles identified how patients reported their perceptions on medication and were integrated into four categories: illness factors, personal attitudes and beliefs, medication factors and environmental factors.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest a need to address adherence from the full range of influencing factors (patient, illness, medication and environmental). Clinicians need to utilise a collaborative approach to working together with patients in order to identify the meaning that patients attribute to the symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis and medication. Understanding patients' perceptions and accepting these may facilitate greater medication adherence and the consequent improved clinical outcomes for patients with bipolar disorder.