Crisis planning in early intervention teams
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What is important in crisis planning? What is useful to include in crisis plans for people who have experienced psychosis? These questions, and more, are being asked by Nikki Lonsdale, a social worker in an early intervention in psychosis team.
Nikki is conducting a national survey of practitioners working in early intervention in psychosis services. She is interested in finding out what practitioners view as most useful in crisis plans.
In her practice, Nikki has observed that practitioners undertake crisis planning in a variety of ways. The last review of the Care Programme Approach1 outlined the need for improved individualisation and crisis planning. However, it did not say what should be included within crisis plans. Therefore, it is unclear how well crisis planning is conducted in teams and the amount of detail which crisis plans include.
Previous studies have found that joint crisis plans, involving an individual, their care coordinator and a facilitator, have had mixed results in terms of subsequent admissions to hospital2,3. Other studies have explored service user choices4 or opinions and crisis plan audits5,6. However, we know little about what practitioners consider to be important in crisis planning, and the barriers to this, as well as how improvements can be made. It is also unclear as to whether instructions on crisis plans are actually followed in practice4.
Nikki’s study aims to fill a gap in our knowledge by gathering national data on the views of practitioners from early intervention in psychosis teams on what they find most useful to include in crisis plans.
But she needs your help.
If you work in an early intervention in psychosis team in the UK, please click here to take the online survey. If not, please share the link to the survey via social media and encourage others to participate.
If you have any questions about this research, please do not hesitate to contact Nikki at nl641@york.ac.uk.
Thank you!
References
1 Department of Health (2008) Refocusing the Care Programme Approach, London: DH.
2 Thornicroft, G. et al. (2013) Clinical outcomes of Joint Crisis Plans to reduce compulsory treatment for people with psychosis: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet, 381(9878), 1634-41.
3 Henderson, C. et al. (2004) Effect of joint crisis plans on use of compulsory treatment in psychiatry: single blind randomised controlled trial. British Medical Journal, 329(7458), 136-138.
4 Ruchlewska A. et al. (2014) Effect of Crisis Plans on Admissions and Emergency Visits: A Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS ONE 9(3): e91882
5 Farrelly, S. et al. (2014) Individualisation in crisis planning for people with psychotic disorders. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 23(4), 353-359.
6 Henderson, C. et al. (2008) Views of service users and providers on joint crisis plans. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 44, 5, 369.