Decision making in mental health team meetings
Intended for healthcare professionals
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Decision making in mental health team meetings

Melanie Jay Narayanasamy Research fellow, University of Nottingham School of Health Sciences

Melanie Jay Narayanasamy examines handling role boundaries, a theory exploring how personality traits affect critical decision making in single point of access meetings

Background Single point of access meetings represent a critical juncture in the lives of mental health clients. The decision-making process undertaken by mental health professionals during this time is therefore crucial.

Method Glaserian grounded theory, with observations and interviews through theoretical sampling, was used to investigate the decision making of attendees.

Findings A basic social process named handling role boundaries emerged, consisting of four phases: recognising, positioning, weighing up and balancing.

Conclusion Handling role boundaries is an innovative, sociological theory that allows conceptual understanding to show how personality traits contribute to the discussions and decisions, as well as professional roles. These need to be managed effectively to make decisions in a limited time frame. Handling role boundaries explains how this is done in a local mental health trust.

Mental Health Practice. 19, 6, 32-38. doi: 10.7748/mhp.19.6.32.s21

Correspondence

melanie.narayanasamy@nottingham.ac.uk

Peer review

This article has been subject to double-blind review and has been checked using antiplagiarism software

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 16 January 2015

Accepted: 20 July 2015

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