Former Inpatient Psychiatric Patients' Past Experiences With Traditional Frontline Staff and Their Thoughts on the Benefits of Peers as Part of Frontline Staff

• Published in: Journal of psychosocial nursing and mental health services Vol. 60; no. 3; pp. 15 - 22
• Main Authors: Shields, Morgan C, Trinh, Nhi-Ha T, Borba, Christina P C, Chen, Ruijia, Reddy, Abhinav K, Singer, Sara J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Slack, Inc 01.03.2022; SLACK INCORPORATED
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude; Care and treatment; Evaluation; Health care policy; Hospitalization; Humans; Inpatient care; Inpatients - psychology; Interviews; Medicaid; Medical personnel; Medicare; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental health care; Mental Health Services; Patient satisfaction; Patients; Peer tutoring; Psychiatric Nursing; Psychiatric patients; Psychiatric services; Psychiatric-mental health nursing; Qualitative Research; Services; United States; United States > US; Massachusetts
• ISSN: 0279-3695; 1938-2413
• DOI: 10.3928/02793695-20210916-01

Little is known about how integrating peers into frontline staff might improve the quality of inpatient psychiatric care. In the current study, we interviewed 18 former adult patients of inpatient psychiatric facilities using semi-structured interviews. We first asked about positive and negative past experiences with traditional staff. We then asked participants to share their opinions on the potential benefits of peers as part of frontline staff. We identified themes through a joint inductive and deductive approach. Participants reported past positive experiences with traditional staff as being (a) personable and caring, (b) validating feelings and experiences, (c) de-escalating, and (d) providing agency. Past negative experiences included (a) not sharing information, (b) being inattentive, (c) not providing agency, (d) being dehumanizing/disrespectful, (e) incompetency, (f) escalating situations, and (g) being apathetic. Participants believed that peers as part of frontline staff could champion emotional needs in humanizing and nonjudgmental ways, help navigate the system, and disrupt power imbalances between staff and patients. Further research is needed to understand financial, organizational, and cultural barriers to integrating peers into frontline staff. [ (3), 15-22.].