Staff attitudes and the provision of individualised care: What determines what we do for people with long-term psychiatric disabilities?

Abstract

The movements to close large psychiatric institutions, and care for people with long-term psychiatric disabilities “in the community”, have brought with them a concern to provide interventions which are based on individual patients' “needs”. It has been assumed that the possession of information leads in an automatic manner to the identification of needs, and that these in turn determine intervention. The process, however, may not be so simple, This study examines the relationship between staff attitudes towards management practices, and the process of assessing patients and deciding on interventions. The results suggest that staff attitudes determine the amount of information gathered, the type of need identified, and the type of intervention chosen. Staff attitudes also determine whether interventions are chosen which meet the identified needs. The implications of this for planning individualised care are discussed.