Experiences of clinical staff who work with patients who self-harm by ligature: an exploratory survey of inpatient mental health service staff

Introduction Self-harm by ligature is a common form of self-harm within inpatient mental health services in England, where most suicides within inpatient settings involve hanging or suffocation. However, little research has examined the experiences of staff members working with this method of self-harm. Aim We explored the experiences of clinical staff who work with patients who self-harm by ligature. Method A staff survey was developed and disseminated to clinical staff working in inpatient settings in England. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and qualitative data using the framework approach. The study was STROBE checklist compliant. Results 275 staff members participated. Challenges most frequently reported about working with self-harm by ligature included understaffing (210, 76.6%), spreading of ligature incidents (198, 72.8%) and negative attitudes held by clinical staff towards such patients (185, 68.5%). Participants' responses indicated that this work could have significant impacts on their professional and personal lives. Staff often reported inadequate training and lack of preparedness, alongside insufficient support opportunities following ligature incidents. Discussion Staff had a diverse range of professional and personal experiences and identified multiple challenges associated with working with patients who have self-harmed by ligature. Implications for Practice There is a need to improve accessibility, format and content of training and support for staff working within inpatient settings where patients may self-harm by ligature

Asking about the future: methodological insights from energy biographies

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Social Research Methodology on 23 April 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13645579.2015.1029208Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research

Texturing waste: attachment and identity in every-day consumption and waste practices

Waste has often been a target of literature and policy promoting pro-environmental behaviour. However, little attention has been paid to how subjects interpret and construct waste in their daily lives. In this article we develop a synthesis of practice theory and psycho-social concepts of attachment and transitional space to explore how biographically patterned relationships and attachments to practice shape subjects' understandings of resource consumption and disposal. Deploying biographical interview data produced by the Energy Biographies Project, we illustrate how tangible, intersubjective and interdependent experiences rub up against cultural and behavioural norms, reshaping the meanings and strategies through which subjects interpret and manage waste

Energy Biographies Research Report

Energy Biographies created a bespoke social science methodology that draws on insights from lifecourse studies, practice theory, and geographical studies of community and place. In bringing together these insights, it recognizes that what people do and how they understand themselves are multiply conditioned. Rather than simply being an outgrowth of more or less rational choices based on available information about the likely consequences of their actions, actions and beliefs are actively moulded by the technological infrastructure on which everyday life depends, the shared practices in which people are participants, the relationships and experiences which shape their biographies, and the evolution of the different communities (of place and of interest) in which they are located. Energy Biographies findings identify several overlooked influences on how energy use changes across the lifecourse and within different community contexts. They suggest that the dominant foci of policy on energy demand (e.g. technology-enabled changes in individual behaviour) may be misplaced, and offers openings towards alternative pathways for change

Asking about the future : methodological insights from energy biographies

Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a qualitative longitudinal and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research

Why mundane energy use matters: Energy biographies, attachment and identity

In recent years, debates about energy justice have become increasingly prominent. However, the question of what is at stake in claims about energy justice or injustice is a complex one. Signifying more than simply the fair distribution of quantities of energy, energy justice also implies issues of procedural justice (participation) and recognition (acknowledgement of diverse values constitutive of ways of life). It is argued that this requires an acknowledgement of why energy use matters in everyday life. Data from the Energy Biographies project at Cardiff University is used to explore connections between the relational texture of everyday life and the ethical significance of energy. In particular, it is demonstrated that embodiment, attachment and narrative are features of sense-making that contribute significantly to everyday understandings of the ethical meanings of different ways of using energy. Using multimodal and biographical qualitative social science allows these implicit forms of evaluation to become more tangible, along with the relationships between them. Conceiving of energy consumers as subjects with biographies, with attachments, and as engaged bodily in energy consumption can open up, it is suggested, different ways of enacting the procedural and recognition aspects of energy justice

Psychometric properties of the Generalised Anxiety Disorder Dimensional Scale in an Australian sample

The Generalised Anxiety Disorder Dimensional Scale is a new measure of generalised anxiety disorder developed to assist clinicians in the dimensional assessment of generalised anxiety disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (Fifth Edition) Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorder Work Group. This study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale in an Australian community sample. A sample of 293 Australians (72.7% female) aged between 18 and 73 (M = 28.31 years; SD = 12.11 years) was recruited. Participants completed the Generalised Anxiety Disorder Dimensional Scale, as well as related measures used to assess convergent and discriminant validity. A small proportion of the sample (n = 21) completed the scale a second time to assess test-retest reliability. The scale demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure, good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .94), good test-retest reliability (ICC = .85), good convergent validity with the Generalised Anxiety Disorder– 7 item (rs = .77), and discriminant validity with the Panic Disorder Severity Scale–Self Report (rs = .63). The scale appears to be a reliable and valid measure of generalised anxiety disorder symptomology for use in the Australian population

Relationality, entangled practices, and psychosocial exploration of intergenerational dynamics in sustainable energy studies

Extensive knowledge exists regarding how to comprehend the embeddedness of everyday energy usage and resultant demand trajectories within wider social and material contexts. Researchers have explored how people find themselves locked into everyday ways of using energy, and how energy systems have evolved to entangle together practices and socio-technological infrastructures. There is widespread acceptance that the challenges of transforming inconspicuous habitual ways of using energy require research attention. What is less clear is how to approach the study of everyday energy use to reflect the ways in which people make their daily lives meaningful. This article draws upon sociological studies of family life and psychosocial research to thicken existing research on material infrastructures and social practices in energy use and demand reduction studies. Findings concern how relational entanglements have a bearing on everyday practices involving energy, and have significant potential to deepen understanding of historically embedded change in people’s everyday energy dependencie

Energy Biographies Research Report

Energy Biographies created a bespoke social science methodology that draws on insights from lifecourse studies, practice theory, and geographical studies of community and place. In bringing together these insights, it recognizes that what people do and how they understand themselves are multiply conditioned. Rather than simply being an outgrowth of more or less rational choices based on available information about the likely consequences of their actions, actions and beliefs are actively moulded by the technological infrastructure on which everyday life depends, the shared practices in which people are participants, the relationships and experiences which shape their biographies, and the evolution of the different communities (of place and of interest) in which they are located. Energy Biographies findings identify several overlooked influences on how energy use changes across the lifecourse and within different community contexts. They suggest that the dominant foci of policy on energy demand (e.g. technology-enabled changes in individual behaviour) may be misplaced, and offers openings towards alternative pathways for change