Abstract
BackgroundMental disorders impose heavy burdens on patients’ families and children. It is imperative to provide family-focused services to avoid adverse effects from mental disorders on patients’ families and children. However, implementing such services requires a great deal of involvement of mental health workers. This study investigated the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and practices in respect to family-focused practices (FFP) in a sample of Chinese mental health workers.MethodsA cross-sectional study design was employed to examine the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and practices of a convenience sample of Chinese mental health workers in respect to FFP, using the Chinese version of the Family-Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire (FFMHPQ).ResultsIn total, 515 mental health workers participated in our study, including 213 psychiatrists, 269 psychiatric nurses, and 34 allied mental health professionals (20 clinical psychologists, 9 mental health social workers, and 4 occupational therapists). Compared with psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists and allied mental health professionals provided more support for families and children of patients with mental illness and were more willing to receive further training in FFP. However, there were no significant differences on knowledge, skills, and confidence across different profession types. After adjusting for demographic and occupational variables, previous training in FFP was positively associated with mental health workers’ knowledge, skills, and confidence about FFP, but not actual support to families and children.ConclusionsProfessional differences on FFP exist in Chinese mental health workers. Training is needed to engage psychiatrists and other allied workforce in dissemination and implementation of FFP in China.
Highlights
Mental disorders impose heavy burdens on patients’ families and children
There were a smaller percentage of psychiatric nurses (53 of 269 [19.7 %]) that had ever been involved in family-focused practices (FFP) than psychiatrists (90 of 213 [42.3 %]) and allied mental health professional (AMHP) (16 of 33 [48.5 %])
Our study showed that psychiatrists in China provided more support to families and children of patients with mental illness and were more willing to receive further training in FFP than psychiatric nurses
Summary
A cross-sectional study design was employed to examine the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and practices of a convenience sample of Chinese mental health workers in respect to FFP, using the Chinese version of the FamilyFocused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire (FFMHPQ). The FFMHPQ was initially constructed by Maybery et al in 2012 [28] and its original version contained 49 items that could be further classified into 16 subscales describing diverse aspects of FFP, including familyfocused policy and procedure, workplace support for FFP, skill and knowledge, worker confidence in FFP, and actual support to carers and children. The FFMHPQ has sound validity and reliability [28] and has been used with different profession types [27], in different health care settings [30], and in different cultures [14, 31]
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