Meeting the information needs of psychiatric inpatients: Staff and patient perspectives

Background: Inadequacy of information and consequent exclusion from discussion and decisions about treatment are enduring complaints of users of mental health services. Aims: To investigate ongoing patient concerns about the provision of medication information on acute psychiatric wards and involve a wide range of stakeholders in the formulation of ways of improving the quality and accessibility of patient information materials. Method: Focus group study of patients, carers and health professionals. Results: Lay and professional focus groups agreed that current provision of written and verbal information was inadequate and should be improved. Patients and relatives accorded this a higher priority than most professionals. Staff were often ambivalent about patients having access to information, tending to emphasize the potentially negative consequences they anticipated this could have on compliance. The study identified features of professional hierarchy and organizational complexity that further restricted patients' access to information from staff. Conclusion: A greater professional awareness of patients' understanding and experience of their illness and concerns about treatment and an understanding of how these relate to patients' wider goals and problems of living is necessary for improving treatment information for patients and to promote a change in the professional culture required for the development of a more patient centred medical practice. Declaration of interest: KP and JG were supported by the Concordance Research Fellowship which is funded by the Department of Health as part of its policy research programme and administered by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Conflicting interests: none.