The Northern Mental Health Nursing Qualitative Research Forum meets three times a year to connect Mental Health Nurse researcher interested in, and conducting, qualitative research, methodologies and innovations. If you wish to be added to the mailing list , please contact KMWright1@uclan.ac.uk.
The following session was recorded at their first event on Friday 13 May. With thanks to Prof Karen Wright and Dr James Turner for organising the event and the invitation to support with recording the sessions. There was four sessions at the inaugural event. These will be shared over the next few weeks via #mhTV. You can see the future dates via: http://mhna.eventbrite.com.
In this second session, Dr Jim Turner presented on Nursing led interventions to support the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children and young people: A scoping review.
The emotional wellbeing of children and young people has become an urgent priority. Increasing levels of need are evident in the numbers affected by depression, anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders (ONS, 2018). Services are overwhelmed by the number of referrals to mental health services (NHS, Digital, 2018). Early intervention in mental health issues in children and adolescents need to be the focus of attention for children’s services to improve outcomes.
A scoping review was undertaken by a specialist mental health team from Sheffield Hallam University as part of a research project funded by the RCN Foundation Charity. This consisted of a systematic literature review and a modified Delphi study of UK wide nursing led psychological interventions for young people.
The scoping literature review yielded results of primarily preventative interventions from a handful of UK studies. By its nature, a scoping review of the literature is limited, therefore it is difficult to draw firm conclusions on effective mental health interventions for children and young people. However, this finding, in itself, is still of value in providing insight into evidence-based practice and gaps for research. The general theme running across the studies (included or rejected), is the inefficient use of time or communication, which runs alongside the current context of the increase in demand for support of children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Delphi responses confirmed the fundamental importance of the therapeutic relationship. They also suggested that nurse-led pre-crisis and early interventions which addressed the mental health and emotional wellbeing needs of children and young people were being extensively utilised. All countries and all regions appeared to have, primarily community-based, services with school in-reach perceived to be highly beneficial.
Emphasis was placed by many practitioners on the importance of the therapeutic relationship. Interventions ranged from listening visits to dialectical behaviour therapy and systemic family therapy to forest and surfing schools. Whilst proactive engagement with the client group is evident, inequalities exist in the provision of services nationwide.
Recommendations for a consistent approach to evidence-based interventions were made to enhance practice in young people’s mental health.
Credits:
NorQual leads: Prof Karen Wright & Dr Jim Turner
Presenter: Dr Jim Turner
Theme music: Tony Gillam
Production & Editing: David Munday
