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Development of a mHealth Intervention (TechCare) for First Episode Psychosis: A Focus Group Study With Mental Health Professionals
- Nadeem Gire, Naeem Mohmed, Mick McKeown, Joy Duxbuy, Nusrat Husain
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- Journal:
- BJPsych Open / Volume 8 / Issue S1 / June 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 June 2022, p. S52
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- Article
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- Open access
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Aims
Research in the area of mHealth, has shown much promise in the development of mobile phone interventions which look at the assessment and treatment in real-time of psychiatric disorders. Within the context of Severe Mental Illnesses (SMI), such as psychosis, communication and understanding between health professionals and service users in the reporting of distress and reoccurrence of symptoms is essential in reducing the chances of relapse. An alternative pathway which uses mobile technology to engage with services, may hold the key to gaining a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of those with mental health difficulties, in particular experiences of recovery from SMI's. AIM: The aim of the study was to explore the perspectives and opinions of health professionals on the development and refinement of the TechCare App for psychosis. A qualitative approach was adopted for data collection, which provided an understanding of factors in relation to the development of the intervention.
MethodsA total of two focus groups were held with health professionals to elicit their views on optimising the utility of the TechCare App. The total sample size for the focus groups was n = 16 with a total of 6 males and 10 females. This qualitative study was part of a feasibility study, investigating a novel intervention (TechCare) (Husain et al., 2016; Gire et al., 2021) which monitored participants symptoms and provided a tailored psychosocial response in real-time. Data obtained from the focus groups was transcribed. Framework analysis were used to analyse the data for emerging themes, focusing on feasibility, acceptability and further development.
ResultsThe key themes that emerged from the data were; access and usage of digital technologies, implications for clinical practice, challenges & barriers to delivery and development and refinement considerations for the TechCare App.
ConclusionResults of the focus group with health professionals provided a unique perspective of conducting mHealth research within an EIS context, and the differing challenges professionals anticipated facing in delivering the TechCare App intervention. The main finding of the focus group was that professionals saw the potential for the TechCare App to increase access to digital technologies, providing service users with an alternative medium to communicate with EIS health professionals. However, the participants felt that despite mHealth Apps being a useful platform to deliver interventions, face-to-face contact should remain an important aspect of routine care.
Seven - Democracy and Work
- Edited by Martin Parker
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- Book:
- Life After COVID-19
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 March 2021
- Print publication:
- 12 August 2020, pp 63-72
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Summary
As the UK adjusts to life during COVID-19, one of the unexpected features is that it has created a better appreciation of workers in low-skilled, poorly paid and precarious work. For example, the BBC One Panorama programme ‘Lockdown UK’ referred to hospital cleaners and supermarket workers as ‘minimum wage heroes’ and food delivery drivers were added to the government's list of key workers. Yet as Jason Moyer-Lee of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain points out, although these workers are doing essential jobs, they have the least rights and little or no job security.
As Chapter Six showed, the world of work has already been changing over the past decade, with a rise of in-work poverty, low-paid work and insecurity, caused by low-paid self-employment, temporary work and zero-hour contracts. COVID-19 has accelerated the move to online work, created new kinds of precarity and increased the risks for workers who are already engaged in low-paid jobs serviced by digital platforms.
So apart from a better public appreciation for workers who do low-paid, stigmatized or dirty work, what have we learned from COVID-19? That decent work is a right for everyone but that lockdown has made the possibility of finding and keeping decent work harder, especially for those working in the gig economy or in low-paid, low-skilled work.
These are issues that trade unions can and should address, but unions are facing a number of serious and existential challenges that frustrate their efforts. These include: difficulties in recruiting and retaining members; a decline in activism; ageing membership; and diminishing union density, bargaining power and representation. Furthermore, many unions have been pursuing a member-servicing approach at the expense of more traditional organizing tactics.
In this chapter, we consider decent work for life after lockdown by reimagining industrial democracy. We do this by proposing a ‘union co-op’ model of work. This is a fully unionized, worker co-operative, owned and controlled by those who own and work in it. Workers’ control, democracy and equality are built into the model, which offers a solution to inequality and injustice both in and outside the workplace.
Nineteen - Solidarity across difference: organising for democratic alliances
- Edited by Helen Spandler, University of Central Lancashire, Jill Anderson, Lancaster University, Bob Sapey
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- Book:
- Madness, Distress and the Politics of Disablement
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 08 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 16 June 2015, pp 271-286
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Summary
Introduction
Ideas which help bring mental health users and survivors together with the wider disability movement are increasingly important given the current threats to welfare provision and the need to defend (and sometimes extend) support, both to mental health service users and disabled people. Questions arise, however, over the extent to which such understandings, and the means by which they are arrived at, might foster solidarity – both within the survivor movement itself and between the movement and potential disabled allies. This chapter will not critique the merits or otherwise of particular models and theories of distress and disability (attended to elsewhere in this book). Rather, we will explore how individuals and groups might take part in discussion and debate to arrive at a better informed politics of mental health and disability (and understanding of the links between them). This should, in turn, lead to more productive alliances within and between mental health and disability movements. This is not to say that separate and autonomous organising within specific disability groups is always ill-advised. However, a broader politics of social change also requires alliance-building across difference.
We recognise that any aspirations for alliances or consensus ought to be tempered by an appreciation that relations along the way are likely to be unsettled and unsettling (Church, 1995). As in any context where ideas and strategy are open to debate, there is an ever present possibility of the sort of acrimony or ‘splitting’ that can be the enemy of collective action. We suggest that ideas about deliberative democracy and relational organising might help frame strategic debates between or within different user groups about contested issues such as who is more ‘deserving’ of support or whether we need more or less professional intervention. We start by outlining these ideas, then explore particular settings where critical dialogue among and between psychiatric survivor activists and disability activists can be worked with. Building on our experiences of community campaigning and trade union struggles, we explore their possibilities for forging productive alliances.
The need for new dialogue
Neoliberal austerity politics and policies have created an impetus for users of welfare services to come together. Mental health service users and survivor activists are thus increasingly likely to pursue their interests within a broader disability framing (Beresford et al, 2002).