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Being admitted to an acute mental health unit can lead to feelings of shame, and loss of personhood for some consumers. Promoting safety for consumers is a function of acute mental health units. This paper explores how consumers' personhood influences their perception and experience of safety in acute mental health units. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants who had previously been admitted to an acute mental health unit. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Participants perceived safety as being intrinsically linked to their personhood. When participants' innate worth was affirmed in their interactions with staff, participants felt safe. Three subthemes were identified: 'Seen as an equal', 'Being respected', and 'Able to make choices'. These findings can be used to inform nursing practices that enhance consumers' sense of personhood and, in so doing, promote consumers' safety and recovery in acute mental health units., (© 2020 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.)

Aims and Objectives: To explore how the physical and social environment of acute mental health units influences consumers' perception and experience of safety., Background: Acute mental health units are places in which consumers should feel safe. Not all consumers, however, feel safe in this environment. Little is known about what contributes to consumers' feelings of safety in this setting., Design: The study used a qualitative descriptive design, influenced by naturalistic enquiry. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and are reported according to the COREQ checklist., Methods: Fifteen people who had experienced admission to an acute mental health unit were individually interviewed., Results: Having a supportive environment enhanced consumers' perception and experience of safety. A supportive environment was experienced when consumers had privacy, felt safe from other consumers and had meaningful activities to participate in within the acute mental health unit. In contrast, having their privacy breached by other consumers made participants feel unsafe. Many participants were fearful of other consumers, and felt unsafe and unable to protect themselves. Lack of meaningful activities led to boredom and contributed to consumers feeling unsafe., Conclusions: Personal spaces should address consumers' privacy needs without compromising staff access. Staff presence enhances consumers' feelings of safety, but this need can be heightened when consumers are unable to alert staff when they feel unsafe. Meaningful activities link consumers to their lives outside of the hospital and can enhance recovery., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Understanding how the acute unit environment is perceived by consumers can assist nurses and managers to promote feelings of safety among consumers. Feeling safe can, in turn, optimise recovery., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Aims and Objectives: To explore how nurses influence the perceptions and experience of safety among consumers who have been admitted to an acute mental health unit., Background: Safety is a priority in acute mental health inpatient units, yet consumers do not always experience acute units as safe. Despite being primary stakeholders, little is known about what safety means for consumers in acute mental health units., Design: A qualitative descriptive study informed by naturalistic enquiry was conducted and is reported using the COREQ checklist., Methods: Fifteen consumers with experience of mental illness participated in semi-structured individual interviews. These interviews explored what safety meant for them during their acute mental health unit admissions. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data., Findings: The theme Influence of Nurses reflected that the way nurses engaged in acute mental health units had a profound impact on participants' sense of safety. Three sub-themes emerged as follows: (a) Availability: "It's about nurses spending time with you"; (b) Being responsive: "They would listen if you had a concern"; and (c) Caring: "Little acts of kindness.", Conclusions: These findings challenge the dominant discourse around safety in mental health organisations, in which nursing practice is often oriented towards the management of risk, rather than the promotion of safety. The findings demonstrate that, through their clinical practice, nurses can enhance consumers' feelings of safety in the acute mental health unit., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Nurses play a key role in providing care within acute mental health units. It is vital that the behaviours and actions nurses can enact in order to promote feelings of safety among consumers in this setting are enabled at individual, unit and organisational levels., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Internationally, lead agencies and consumer movements emphasise the need for high-level research participation in mental health. However, evidence suggests that people with lived experience tend to be recruited as subjects rather than as active agents in research, or are consulted in tokenistic ways. Although participatory research has the potential to rectify epistemic disparities, few studies have grappled with how to move from exclusion and tokenism to high-level research participation. This paper describes a qualitative co-evaluation of a co-produced model of research partnership, Raising the Bar, which involved deliberate establishment and facilitation of six participatory research teams, comprising 28 lived experience and 'conventional' mental health researchers. Findings indicate that the theoretical elements of the model set the bar high from the outset, supporting research teams to address inconsistencies in knowledge about participation. It also provided researchers with the competencies and resources to undertake participatory research in egalitarian team structures, and to negotiate new forms of non-traditional research outputs - thereby challenging whom research might be for and how it might be made accessible. Finally, the model shifted collective meanings about research, lending credibility to participatory practices, which came to be seen as essential for meeting the needs of affected communities. Nonetheless, systemic barriers to participatory research remain, and need to be recognised and acted upon to promote a culture that supports high-level research participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]