Dr Rebecca Band is a senior research fellow at NIHR CLAHRC Wessex
After several months of thinking ‘I think I’d like to learn how to swim’, last year, I finally made the decision to enrol in adult swimming lessons. I was motivated, I felt fit and so was confident this was something I was capable of doing (and I must admit the lessons were also convenient to get to). Psychologists might say that I had high “self-efficacy”. Self-efficacy is the belief that you will successfully be able to complete a task, activity or performance.
However, my high self-efficacy did not necessarily mean that everything went smoothly or to plan. In the hours leading up to the first lesson I started to make excuses to myself and almost (spoiler alert!) didn’t go. I suspect you’re wondering what has all this got to do with anything?
One week on from the atrocity that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand that resulted in 50 people’s lives being taken, communities across the world have come together to show #WeAreOne. Here in Southampton the Muslim Council and Southampton’s Council of Faiths held a Peace Vigil this week to remember those lives lost. Today however, the significance of standing side by side with our Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues really hit home.
When people talk about managing mental health the most frequent thing to do is to recourse to self help or looking to services to help. There is less recognition of the power of social networks for help and support based on connections and reciprocity around us.
Separating out the individual from their need for other people and ability to mobilise resources in order to manage effectively, has meant that the notion of a personal community of support (the array of personal ties with which people are located and embedded) has not tended to be included in understanding or responding to mental health need.
Now there’s a nascent social movement about networks.
More and more of us are looking online for information to support our health (see Chris Allen’s work on support in Online Communities). In my research, I have found that the ability to get hold of that information and support, which is personal to you, can make a huge difference to how well you are.
I’m focusing on insulin pumps, which are an alternative means to deliver insulin to people with diabetes – compared to the more traditional multiple daily injections.
Insulin pumps have been developed to help people with Type 1 diabetes manage the condition better; both in terms of their quality of life and by more closely resembling a fully-functioning pancreas.
However, introducing a new health technology to an already difficult to manage condition is not necessarily simple, or easy.
According to research by the Children’s Society there are estimated to be 700,000 young carers aged between 5 and 17 years old in the UK.
That figure surprise many people, and the charity goes on to explain how caring at a young age can impact a young persons’ education, health, development and quality of life.
The everyday management of a long-term condition is almost never done by individuals in isolation from others. The networks of relationships around people may include family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues, health professionals and even pets all of who play an important role in the management of long-term conditions. This is through, for example, their knowledge, support, help with accessing services, resources and valued activities.
Chris Allen is a Research Fellow and a nurse in Southampton
There comes a point in everyone’s life when they get news that changes their life…of course it’s not always bad. Think “you’ve got the all clear” or “you’re going to have a baby”.
But what if that’s not so good. “You have diabetes” or “you have developed COPD”. In those cases firstly you might ask the doctor or nurse- “what can you do?” and “how is it going to affect me?”
Could this statement be the one that encapsulates the perception that mental health services are frequently unable to help people with mental health issues?
A research participant in a study I’m conducting into support networks of people with long term mental health problems outlined what she saw as some of the problems with her encounters with health professionals in the mental health system.
I’ve been a clinician in mental health for many (many) years I have heard tales of woe and distress. They have often been so devastating, and at the same time, inspirational as one hears about the efforts people make to overcome the most extreme situations. I have always felt a sense of privilege at being allowed into these stories and as a researcher this privilege feels somehow even more intense.
Professor Anne Rogers is Professor of Health Systems Implementation in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton and Research Director of the NIHR CLAHRC Wessex
Professor Anne Rogers explains how weaker social ties play a role in helping people manage a long term illness.
With ever more attention on the NHS and how many nurses and doctors are needed to give people the best care, one part of the health equation is going unnoticed – What attention is being paid to the role of the patient and their extended network of relationships? In early 70s West Coast America a piece of research by Anselm Strauss and colleagues examined a set of questions on ‘self-care’.
This site promotes independent research by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Funding Scheme. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health
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