File
M. Grafe1, I. Stickdorn1, B.T. Baune2
1Muenster University Hospital, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, Muenster, Germany, 2Muenster University Hospital, Clinic for Mental Health, Muenster, Germany
Background: Patients with severe mental illness face many barriers to engage in physical activity. Due to prolonged periods of sedentary behaviour, mentally ill patients are of high risk for cardiovascular diseases and show an increased mortality. Physical activity is a modifiable factor that can improve physical and mental symptoms. Nevertheless, increasing the level of physical activity and disrupt sedentary behavior in clinical practice is challenging.
Purpose: To understand the perceived barriers and to identify need for change categories regarding physical activity interventions from a health professional perspective in an inpatient university hospital setting in Germany, a multiprofessional workshop was conducted. The results of this workshop are fundamental for a future implementation research project.
Methods: The workshop was organized in three phases
1) Raising the awareness by presenting on the current evidence on physical activity in mental health and the current physical activity interventions within the clinic
2) Overall discussion about a general need for change
3) specific discussion on content-related, organizational and structural needs for change.
1) Raising the awareness by presenting on the current evidence on physical activity in mental health and the current physical activity interventions within the clinic
2) Overall discussion about a general need for change
3) specific discussion on content-related, organizational and structural needs for change.
Results: 15 participants with different professional backgrounds (physiotherapists, exercise therapists, occupational therapists, medical doctors, nurses) participated at the workshop. There was a concordant agreement on the relevance of physical activity interventions in the clinic as well as common agreement on a general need for change. Results of the workshop showed, that there is a need for establishing professional leadership roles that hold a responsibility for physical activity throughout the whole treatment process. Additionally, there is a need for implementing a systematic screening of physical behavior and continuous outcome measurement as well as an improvement of interprofessional communication structures.
Conclusion(s): Awareness on the relevance of physical activity in the treatment of severe mental ill patients was generally high. The multiprofessional workshop gave opportunity for all professions to express their view and perceived needs of change and therefore increase the willingness to engage in the upcoming implementation process. The workshop resulted in an interprofessional working group for the upcoming implementation research project. Furthermore, there is a demand for physiotherapists to assume responsibility for physical activity issues in the inpatient setting.
Implications: As a consequence of the workshop a working group is set up, that is planning and implementing an implementation research project on a selected ward within the clinic. The key aspects will be to designate a physiotherapy leader responsible in representing physical therapy aspects as well as the implementation of screening and assessment tools as a requirement for interprofessional communication and patient-centered care.
Funding, acknowledgements: there is no external funding to report on
Keywords: severe mental illness, physical activity, leadership
Topic: Mental health
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: WWU
Committee: Datenschutz UKM
Reason: Ethical approval was not required as we do not collect sensitive personal data
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
