What Should Inpatient Psychological Therapies be for? Qualitative Views of Service Users on Outcomes

Background: There is limited research on what, when and how outcomes should be measured in psychological therapy trials in acute mental health inpatient wards.

Objectives: This study aimed to consider what outcomes service users think are important to measure.

Methods: This qualitative study explored the views of 14 participants, who had an inpatient admission within the last year, on outcomes of psychological therapies using semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using thematic analysis from a critical realist perspective with both inductive and deductive coding.

Results: The 126 outcomes that were important to participants were mapped onto an established taxonomy of outcomes across different health areas and the socio-ecological framework to consider the wider context and help summarise the outcomes. Most of the outcomes were mapped to the intrapersonal and interpersonal level. In addition to the outcome mapping, three themes were constructed from the qualitative data: (1) I am not a problem I am a person, (2) Feeling cared for and loved, (3) What does getting better look like.

Conclusions: Our results highlight the need for patient reported outcomes which are co-created with service users, disseminating research and training on preventing dehumanising experiences, enhancing psychological safety and therapeutic relationships and improving access to psychological therapy.