At 8pm on Monday October 27th I’ll be hosting a #WeMHNs tweet chat on Research in mental health nursing:

Here’s the pre-chat post from the @WeMHNurses blog, which as you’ll see links this chat to a second scheduled for December which will be hosted by André Tomlin (who runs the excellent Mental Elf website):

Research in mental health nursing
Research is about creating new knowledge. In practitioner fields like nursing, research findings can aid decisions on the provision of care or treatments, and on ways of organising services. Research uncovering the views and experiences of people using, or working in, services can be used to inform improvements.

This is the first of two linked chat s about research, and is about involvement and engagement . The second, on keeping up to date with the evidence, will be facilitated by André Tomlin (who runs The Mental Elf website at www.thementalelf.net/ and who tweets at @Mental_Elf) on Thursday December 11th between 8:30 and 9:30pm. A ll are welcome to both chats : practitioners, students, service users, carers, managers, policymakers, researchers. No particular knowledge of research methods, or direct experience of involvement in research, is needed.

In this first chat we’re interested in hearing (and talking about):

•  What (if any) are people’s experiences of research, along a continuum of doing research, to taking part in research to using (or being otherwise affected by) the research findings produced by others?

•  How has research made a difference to people working in mental health services?

•  How has research made a difference to people using mental health services?

•  What are the opportunities for embedding research into mental health nursing policy, services and practice?

•  What are the challenges facing efforts to embed research into mental health nursing policy, services and practice?

•  What research is currently happening, how is it being done, and by whom?

•  What are the research priorities for mental health nursing?

People wanting to know more about research in mental health nursing ahead of this chat may wish to follow links to individuals and organisations accessible from the website of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK (@MHNAUK), which is at http://mhnauk.swan.ac.uk/main.htm . MHNAUK is a group existing to influence and promote education, research and values-based mental health nursing practice for the benefit of people using services and their families.

People wanting to know more about recent and ongoing research projects led by mental health nurses may be interested to follow some of these links:

•  Safewards, led by Professor Len Bowers: http://www.safewards.net/

•  Cross-national comparative study of recovery-focused mental health care planning and coordination (COCAPP), led by Professor Alan Simpson: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hsdr/11200412

•  Cross-national comparative study of recovery-focused mental health care planning in acute inpatient mental health settings (COCAPP-A), led by Professor Alan Simpson: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hsdr/131075

•  An evidence synthesis of risk identification, assessment and management for young people using tier 4 inpatient child and adolescent mental health services (RiSC), led by Dr Ben Hannigan: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hsdr/11102408

•  Plan4Recovery, led by Dr Michael Coffey: http://plan4recovery.org.uk

•  Enhancing the quality of user involved care planning in mental health services (EQUIP), led by Professor Karina Lovell: http://www.nursing.manchester.ac.uk/equip

So, there it is: please spread the word!

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