Sustainable staff well-being within older adult mental health

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how staff attend to their well-being when working in an inpatient mental health setting with older adults with dementia and complex mental health needs; how staff understand the link between their well-being and the well-being of patients.

Design/methodology/approach

A semi-structured group interview was held with 11 members of two multidisciplinary teams. The discussion was audio-recorded and analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings

Staff reported managing their well-being by both connecting with and avoiding the difficult emotions of the work. The team avoided the gravity of the work through humour, a task-focus, an absence of thinking and the displacement of workplace frustrations onto an outgroup. Connecting with emotions was done in tolerable ways: in contained reflective spaces, in the presence of supportive others, through genuine connections with patients as people and when the organisation demonstrated care for the staff.

Practical implications

Avoidant strategies appeared to represent short-term ways of maintaining staff well-being, while connecting with the gravity of the work appeared to represent what we hope is a more sustainable approach to managing well-being. A crucial premise for staff well-being is teams embedded within organisations that care for their employees.

Originality/value

Poor staff well-being can have serious consequences for an organisation, particularly in the existentially challenging environment of dementia care. This study offers a unique opportunity to explore staff well-being in a UK inpatient mental health setting with older adults with dementia and complex mental health needs.

Citation

Blagg, R. and Petty, S. (2015), "Sustainable staff well-being within older adult mental health", Mental Health Review Journal, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 92-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHRJ-08-2014-0027