Edinburgh Napier University

  There is evidence to suggest that psychological therapies for severe mental health problems in the community can be beneficial. However, the evidence base investigating the benefit of psychological interventions for acute mental health inpatients remains variable in quality with mixed results. This review and meta-analysis discusses the available evidence base and the benefits of psychological therapy for acute mental health in-patients. In addition, a cross-diagnostic model of psychological intervention has been applied in an acute mental health inpatient setting at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH). The model offers individual therapy and CBT based ‘third wave’ group therapy to acute inpatients. It also offers Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) skills based training and basic CBT skills training to all ward staff. Furthermore, weekly group reflective practice and clinical supervision is available for staff. This has been applied alongside treatment as usual (TAU). The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of this cross diagnostic model, when applied alongside TAU and compare it to TAU alone. Effectiveness will be measured using patient data (length of stay and readmission data), standardised clinical outcome measures (CORE-10 and Brief Symptoms Inventory) and a theoretical measure of self efficacy (Mental Health Confidence Scale) at 3 data collection points (pre treatment, post treatment and 6 month follow-up).