Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun;30(3):798-810.
doi: 10.1111/inm.12838. Epub 2021 Mar 16.

Health professionals' perspectives of safety issues in mental health services: A qualitative study

Abigail Albutt  1 , Kathryn Berzins  2 , Gemma Louch  1 , John Baker  2
Affiliations
Free article

Health professionals' perspectives of safety issues in mental health services: A qualitative study

Abigail Albutt et al. Int J Ment Health Nurs. 2021 Jun.
Free article

Abstract

The study aimed to explore mental health professionals' perceptions of patient safety issues across community and inpatient mental health services. Fourteen mental health professionals across community and inpatient settings participated in qualitative interviews. Framework analysis, guided by the Yorkshire Contributory Factors Framework - Mental Health, was used to analyse the data. Safety issues identified by mental health professionals mapped on to 19 of the 21 factors in the Yorkshire Contributory Factors Framework - Mental Health. The factors most frequently mentioned by participants were 'safety culture' which focused on raising concerns, learning from incidents and the influence of targets; 'communication systems' to support effective communication between staff; 'service user factors' including a perceived increase in illness acuity; 'service process' including how patients access and interact with services; and 'staff workload' perceived being as unmanageable. Mental health professionals consider there to be a broad range of safety issues associated with mental health services. Future research should aim to develop interventions to improve safety focused across the factors raised by professionals.

Keywords: health services research; mental health services; patient safety.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Appleby, L., Hunt, I. M. & Kapur, N. (2017). New policy and evidence on suicide prevention. Lancet Psychiatry, 4, 658-660.
    1. Baker, C. (2020). Mental health statistics for England: prevalence, services and funding. [Cited 3 November 2020]. Available from: URL: https://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/APA6th/websites
    1. Baker, J., Canvin, K. & Berzins, K. (2019). The relationship between workforce characteristics and perception of quality of care in mental health: A qualitative study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 100, 103412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103412
    1. Benn, J., Koutantji, M., Wallace, L. et al. (2009). Feedback from incident reporting: Information and action to improve patient safety. BMJ Quality and Safety, 18, 11-21.
    1. Berzins, K., Baker, J., Brown, M. & Lawton, R. (2018). A cross-sectional survey of mental health service users’, carers’ and professionals’ priorities for patient safety in the United Kingdom. Health Expectations, 21, 1085-1094.

LinkOut - more resources