1 research outputs found
Health professionals' perspectives on psychological distress and meeting patients' support needs in rheumatology care settings: A qualitative study
Background: Patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IRDs) face challenges including pain, fatigue and disease flares. Evidence suggests their levels of anxiety and depression are higher compared to the general population. Rheumatology teams report psychologically distressed patients have additional support needs and require more clinical time. Little is currently known about models of support and their integration into care pathways. Aim: To understand rheumatology health professionals' perspectives on patients' psychological distress and ways to meet support needs. Methods: The study used a qualitative design, with data collected in telephone semiāstructured interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Results: Fifteen interviews were conducted. Two main themes with subāthemes represent the data: Theme 1: āNo one shoe fits allāāthe many manifestations of distress in patients (subāthemes: recognising distress, dealing with distress, dealing with life events alongside an IRD) and Theme 2: āIf rheumatology could be interwoven with psychological principlesāāthe need to attend to the psychological impact of IRDs, alongside the physical impact (subāthemes: priority given to physical health, working together to help patients in distress, how should patient distress be measured?, the need for extra time and resources). Conclusion: Distress can be obvious or hidden, cause issues for patients and health professionals and lead to poor engagement with care provision. Health professionals described the powerful link between physical and mental distress. This study suggests psychological support provision should be embedded within the rheumatology team and that patients' emotional wellbeing should be given equal priority to their physical wellbeing