Mental health professional experiences of the flexible assertive community treatment model: a grounded theory study

Abstract

Background: Despite the lack of evidence for effectiveness of the Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (Flexible ACT), the model is considered feasible and is well received by mental health professionals. No current studies have adequately examined mental health professional experiences of working with Flexible ACT.

Aims: The aim of this study was to explore mental health professional experiences of working with the Flexible ACT model compared with standard care.

Method: The study was guided by grounded theory and based on the interviews with 19 theoretically chosen mental health professionals in Swedish urban areas primarily working with consumers with psychosis, who had worked with the Flexible ACT model for at least 6 months.

Results: The analysis resulted in the core category: “Flexible ACT and the shared caseload create a common action space” and three main categories: (1) “Flexible ACT fills the need for a systematic approach to crisis intervention”; (2) “Flexible ACT has advantages in the psychosocial working environment”; and (3) “Flexible ACT increases the quality of care”.

Conclusions: Mental health professionals may benefit from working with the Flexible ACT model through decreased job-strain and stress, increased feeling of being in control over their work situation, and experiences of providing higher quality of care.

Keywords:

• Integrated services
• severe mental illness
• implementation
• clinical experience

Acknowledgements

We would especially like to thank the mental health professionals who were interviewed for this study. We would also like to thank Anna Blomgren who was helpful in creating the figure, and Professor Lars Hansson and Anneli Orrung Wallin PhD who provided valuable comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This work was supported by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and the writing of this paper.