‘Acknowledge me as a capable person’: How people with mental ill health describe their experiences with general emergency care staff – A qualitative interview study

Abstract

People with mental ill health attend general emergency care more often than others for physical and psychiatric care needs. Staff in general emergency care report they lack knowledge and strategies to meet with and care for people with mental ill health. This study aimed to describe how people with mental ill health experience encounters with staff in general emergency care. We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 11 people with mental ill health about their experiences in general emergency care and subjected the interview data to qualitative content analysis. Our results show the importance to people with mental ill health of being acknowledged as capable persons, and how this relates to their experiences of being recognized, ignored, or dismissed by staff in general emergency care. Even small, ordinary aspects of staff/patient interactions can have major impacts on a person's recovery and well-being. The study is reported according to the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) guidelines.

Navigating oneself through the eyes of the other – meanings of encountering ambulance clinicians while being in a suicidal process

“…In the findings of the present study, encountering clinicians who are silent is understood as being a burden and taking up their time. Similar understandings of clinicians’ silence is described by Derblom et al ( 2021 ). However, patients in the present study also describe that silence can be respectful and offers an opportunity to talk if the clinicians are emphatic and present.…”

Epistemic citizenship under structural siege: a meta-analysis drawing on 544 voices of service user experiences in Nordic mental health services

“…Most, if not all, of the papers touched upon mental health patients reporting on their relations with professionals and the professional world. Positive experiences were predominantly connected to confidence and safety in professional encounters and characterized by, for example, continuity, responsiveness to individual needs, and the abilities to build trust, achieve a sense of uniqueness, and be recognized as a 'person' rather than a 'service user' (59,60).…”

“…Instead, our review indicates that encounters and communication patterns characterized by an absence of stigma and imposition seem to be, in themselves, an aspect of epistemic justice [cf. (59,66)]. In the following text, we present more detailed findings according to the themes and sub-themes outlined in Table 1 on service user narratives and experiences of influence, voice, relations and organizational settings.…”