Improving support for mental health staff: a qualitative study

Background: High levels of both burnout and job satisfaction have been foun d in recent studies of mental health professionals. A qualitative methodolo gy was used in a related study to explore reasons far these findings and to investigate staffs accounts of their strategies for coping with their work , and their views of support provided for them and how their jobs might be made less stressful and still more satisfying. Method: A semi-structured sc hedule was used to interview a purposive sample of 30 mental health staff d rawn from three South London geographical sectors, selected to include juni or and senior members of each profession in both hospital and community set tings. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using QSR NUD.IST software. Results: Informal contacts with colleagues were the most frequently mentio ned way of coping with the difficult and demanding aspects of work in both hospital and community settings, closely followed by time management techni ques. The main formal sources of support described by staff were individual supervision and staff support groups. Accounts of the former were generall y positive, but there was great variation in opinions about whether support groups are useful. Almost all the interviewees believed that their jobs co uld be improved by further training. For community mental health staff the main training gaps were the development of skills in various forms of clini cal intervention, whilst ward staff identified the need for further skills in diffusing potentially confrontational and aggressive situations.