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The concept of personal recovery is now a key pillar of service delivery. It aims to support individuals to flourish and establish a new identity following an acute episode or diagnosis. This view of recovery is unique to each person on that journey. However, there has been a significant focus on measuring these experiences. This paper aims to explore the influence of social constructionism on the concept of recovery within an Irish context, seeking to understand the influence of language, discourse and power on service users’ experiences.

A qualitative, interpretivist methodology was adopted for this case study design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service users. Thematic analysis was chosen as the method of analysis.

Personalising recovery did not always lead to the removal of biological symptoms, but with the appropriate supports, individual’s recovery journey was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, personal recovery places overwhelmingly responsibility on the individual to succeed, largely driven by neoliberal discourse. This focus on individualism and the pressure to succeed was further experienced when people sought to re-integrate into society and participate in normalised social order. Ultimately, for many service users, they viewed personal recovery as an unfulfilled promise.

It is not a representative sample of service users within an Irish context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore influence of social constructionism on the concept of personal recovery within a mental health service context.

This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

Meals on Wheels (MOW) support older people to live in their own homes and communities. The purpose of this paper is to explore MOW experiences from a multi-stakeholder level to inform and better equip this valuable service.

A qualitative approach was undertaken utilising semi-structured interviews and focus groups with current, former and potential MOW service users and MOW stakeholders.

Qualitative analysis explored MOW perspectives and experiences, highlighting a lack of MOW information and awareness, the importance of a client-centred approach the multiple roles of MOW and service transition.

This research explores MOW from the perspective of different groups directly involved in this community service, offering unique multi-stakeholder insights to understand and guide the future of this service.

This paper aims to explore the roles of psychologists in seclusion in adult mental health services in Ireland, their perspectives on seclusion and its use in recovery-oriented practice and related professional practice issues.

A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted from a social constructivist perspective. Semi-structured interviews with 17 psychologists were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Twenty-four themes were identified, which were clustered into four overarching themes. Participants viewed themselves and psychology in Ireland more broadly as peripheral to seclusion. They believed that seclusion possessed no inherent therapeutic value but viewed it as an uncomfortable and multi-faceted reality. Participants regarded seclusion and recovery as largely inconsistent and difficult to reconcile, and they perceived systemic factors, which had a pervasive negative impact on seclusion and recovery in practice.

The findings highlight the perceived complexity of seclusion and its interface with recovery, and the need to conscientiously balance conflicting priorities that cannot be easily reconciled to ensure ethical practice. The findings suggest psychologists are well-suited to participate in local and national discussions on using seclusion in recovery-oriented practice.

This study offers a unique insight into psychologists’ perceptions of seclusion and considers the implications of these views. Participants’ nuanced views suggest that psychologists can make valuable contributions to local and national discussions on these topics.

This study explores how street-level professionals translate and implement a co-production strategy, formulated by top management, in their professional practices, focusing on conflicts that arise during this process and the effectiveness of the coping strategies employed by these professionals to manage them.

This paper is based on a lower-level inquiry into three care services in Denmark. It adopted the translation perspective in organizational research to analyze the consequences of street-level professionals' translation choices. Data were collected through interviews and observations.

This study found that street-level professionals' translation choices contribute to conflicts of varying forms and extents. The finding suggests that the way conflicts are managed makes the difference between the actual organizational change and the more symbolic acceptance of co-production.

This study contributes to discourses on challenges in co-production implementation by deepening knowledge about the role of coping behavior and translation in sustainable implementation of co-production.

The purpose of this study is to describe participation in decision-making among service users with severe mental illness.

Service users want to participate in decision-making and in the planning of their care. There are widely known methods, such as shared decision-making, that could be used to facilitate service user participation. Three focus group interviews were conducted with the participation of 14 persons with mental illness and/or substance abuse who were service users at two Swedish Homes for Care and Residence (HVB). Data were analyzed by qualitative content analysis.

Two themes emerged: service users’ involvement in decisions is hampered by the professionals’ approach and adequate information and experience of participation means greater empowerment.

Although it is known that service users would like to have more influence, and that methods like shared decision-making are recommended to empower service users and improve the decision process, research on these matters is limited.

This study reveals that there is a need of more systematic decisional support, such as shared decision-making, so that service users can be seen as important persons not only in guidelines and policy documents but also in clinical practice.

The findings indicate that service users do not participate in decisions systematically, although policies, guidelines and laws providing that service users should be offered an active part in decision-making with regard to their care and treatment.

Although it is known that service users would like to have more influence, and that methods like shared decision-making are recommended to empower service users and improve their decision process, research on these matters is limited. The findings indicate that service users do not participate in decisions systematically, even though policies, guidelines and laws are in place stipulating that service users should be offered an active part in decision-making with regard to their own care and treatment. The results of this project bring improvement opportunities to light.

Using data from a continuous and ongoing cross-sectional web survey on hospitalisation service experiences in two Italian regions, the authors used multilevel and multivariate logistic regression models to identify factors related to users' demographics, emotional and informative support, technical and physical aspects of the provision, influencing satisfaction and willingness-to-recommend, before and during a crisis.

The value-in-use, defined in terms of a positive or negative value given by the experience with services, can be evaluated by users and influenced by the context of provision. The authors tested whether and how the value-in-use of services changed in a context of crisis. This study is applied to the healthcare sector during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, by evaluating the impact of the pandemic on hospitalisation experience.

Overall, analyses of 8,712 questionnaires found a greater value after the pandemic spread. In a time of crisis, technical and informative aspects of care were found to be most valued by patients that may recognise the extraordinary professionalism of workers during the crisis.

This study empirically suggests that context can affect the evaluation of value-in-use by patients during unprecedented circumstances, producing additional value-in-context.

These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

The level of healthcare system distress, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, positively affects patients' propensity to recommend, which the authors suggest is driven by healthcare services' feelings of reverse compassion. These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience, which can have positive social implications. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

Research based on the intersection of theoretical and empirical research regarding value-in-use, value-in-context and service quality measured through user experience is scarce, in particular in the healthcare sector. The authors' findings set the direction for future research on the influence of context on value creation and value creation's perception by users, on the concept of reverse compassion and on reverse compassion's impact on organisational well-being, particularly in times of crisis.

This paper aims to develop a model that supports public organisations in making informed strategic decisions as to which public services are most suitable to be improved through co-creation. Thus, it first identifies the features that make public services (un)suitable for co-creation and then applies this knowledge to develop a multi-criteria decision support model for the assessment of their co-creation readiness.

The decision support model is the result of design science research. While its structure is determined by a qualitative multi-criteria decision analysis, its substance builds on a content analysis of Web of Science papers and over a dozen empirical case studies.

The model is comprised of 13 criteria clustered into two groups: service readiness criteria from the perspective of service users and service readiness criteria from the perspective of a public organisation.

The model attributes rely on a limited number of empirical cases and references from the literature review. The model was tested by only one public organisation on four of its services.

The paper shifts the research focus from organisational properties and capacity, as the key co-creation drivers and barriers, to features of public services as additional factors that affect the prospect of co-creation. Thus, it makes a pioneering step towards the conceptualisation of the idea of “service readiness for co-creation” and the development of a practical instrument that supports co-creation in the public sector.

Facilities management (FM) activities affect citizens’ health and safety, long-term urban environmental sustainability and the relationships between the built and natural environments of cities. This study aims to comprehend the status of smart FM tools application, how they are used to improve the delivery of FM services and the barriers to their implementation.

To investigate the current smart solutions that leverage the quality of FM service, a case study based on the FM practice in Hong Kong was carried out. The case study was conducted in two phases of data acquisition based on a qualitative research methodology. After conducting in-depth interviews to determine the application of smart FM tools in different types of properties and to identify the initiatives and barriers to smart FM tool application, three workshops were conducted to validate the findings and further investigate the influence of FM professionals on smart FM tools application in Hong Kong.

The findings of the case study revealed, firstly, that four types of smart FM tools – user-centric, safety and hygiene, maintenance and sustainability-oriented – are used to assist the delivery of FM services. Secondly, smart FM tools are shown to be useful in assisting FM activities. Thirdly, the existing barriers to smart FM tool application manifest differently in shopping malls, office buildings and residential buildings. Fourthly, smart FM tools are used to address the four attributes of user needs: comfort, health and wellbeing, convenience and information to occupants.

The value of this study lies in its focus on the industry level (FM industry) and the application process of smart FM tools in different types of property, revealing the benefits, initiatives and barriers to their future application. This study provides a comprehensive picture of the current status and elaborates the barriers to smart FM tool application, which will help FM practitioners to make strategic decisions on selecting and developing smart FM tools. Also, this study will facilitate smart FM tool application policy development.

There is a proportion of psychiatric service users whose needs are not met by existing models of care. This can lead to a reliance on acute and crisis services. These service users may be considered high intensity users (HIUs). The purpose of this research is to evaluate the Crisis Plus model, an intervention designed to better support HIUs in the community and reduce dependency on acute and crisis services.

Forty-seven HIUs were involved in Crisis Plus. The core intervention of Crisis Plus was an Anticipatory Management Plan (AMP), produced in collaboration with service users, their families and their care coordinators. AMPs were shared with relevant services and attached to electronic patient notes to ensure a uniform, psychologically informed approach to care.

HIU service use was compared pre and post-AMP. On average, number of inpatient admissions, number of days spent on the ward, accepted psychiatric liaison referrals and accepted home treatment team (HTT) referrals decreased significantly.

Crisis Plus has taken a collaborative, proactive approach to engage HIUs, their families and the services that care for them. Crisis interventions that emphasise collaborative working and service user agency are key.

The provision of dedicated psychological support to HIUs and their professional and personal network is crucial to reduce reliance on acute and crisis care. Crisis Plus is unique in that it instigates co-production and active consultation with HIUs and services to improve clinical outcomes, in addition to reducing NHS expenditure.