Gitte Wind

Recovery from mental illness: a service user perspective on facilitators and barriers.

Mental health services strive to implement a recovery-oriented approach to rehabilitation. Little is known about service users’ perception of the recovery approach. The aim is to explore the service user’s perspectives on facilitators and barriers associated with recovery. Twelve residents living in supported housing services are interviewed. The analysis is guided by a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach and the interpretation involves theories from critical theory, sociology, and learning. Learning, social relations, and willpower are identified as having an impact on recovery. Stigmatization and social barriers occurred. Social relations to peer residents and staff were reported as potentially having a positive and negative impact on recovery. Studies have explored the user’s perspectives on recovery but this study contributes with knowledge on how recovery-oriented services have an impact on recovery.

The potential of a self-assessment tool to identify healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas in need of professional development to aid effective facilitation of group-based, person-centered diabetes education

BackgroundHealthcare professionals’ person-centered communication skills are pivotal for successful group-based diabetes education. However, healthcare professionals are often insufficiently equipped to facilitate person-centeredness and many have never received post-graduate training. Currently, assessing professionals’ skills in conducting group-based, person-centered diabetes education primarily focus on experts measuring and coding skills on various scales. However, learner-centered approaches such as adequate self-reflective tools have been shown to emphasize professional autonomy and promote engagement. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of a self-assessment tool to identify healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas in need of professional development to aid effective facilitation of group-based, person-centered diabetes education.MethodsThe study entails of two components: 1) Field observations of five different educational settings including 49 persons with diabetes and 13 healthcare professionals, followed by interviews with 5 healthcare professionals and 28 persons with type 2 diabetes. 2) One professional development workshop involving 14 healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals were asked to assess their person-centered communication skills using a self-assessment tool based on challenges and skills related to four educator roles: Embracer, Facilitator, Translator, and Initiator. Data were analyzed by hermeneutic analysis. Theories derived from theoretical model ‘The Health Education Juggler’ and techniques from ‘Motivational Interviewing in Groups’ were used as a framework to analyze data. Subsequently, the analysis from the field notes and interview transcript were compared with healthcare professionals’ self-assessments of strengths and areas in need to effectively facilitate group-based, person-centered diabetes education.ResultsHealthcare professionals self-assessed the Translator and the Embracer to be the two most skilled roles whereas the Facilitator and the Initiator were identified to be the most challenged roles. Self-assessments corresponded to observations of professional skills in educational programs and were confirmed in the interviews.ConclusionHealthcare professionals self-assessed the same professional skills as observed in practice. Thus, a tool to self-assess professional skills in facilitating group-based diabetes education seems to be useful as a starting point to promote self-reflections and identification of healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas of need of professional development.