Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Labelling people who are resident in a secure forensic mental health service: user views

Dickens, G., Lange, A. and Picchioni, M. (2011) Labelling people who are resident in a secure forensic mental health service: user views. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology. 22(6), pp. 885-894. 1478-9949.

Item Type: Article
Abstract: There has been considerable debate about the terms that mental health service providers use to refer to the people who are resident in their services. Some have argued that the labels used to refer to people can be stigmatising or empowering, but no study has examined the views of users of secure psychiatric services. This study aimed to establish preference for terminology among a sample of people resident in three secure hospitals. A survey of 100 randomly selected individuals, stratified to ensure gender representativeness, was conducted. ‘Patient’ was the preferred term of 42% of respondents; ‘client’ (20%), ‘service user’ (17%) and ‘consumer’ (2%) were less popular. Preference did not vary by gender, age, diagnosis, legal status, ethnicity, security level or length of stay. On the basis of preference alone, there is no case for rejection of the term ‘patient’ in secure mental health service provider communication and literature.
Uncontrolled Keywords: secure services, service user views, mental disorder
Subjects: R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA1001 Forensic Medicine. Medical jurisprudence. Legal medicine > RA1151 Forensic psychiatry
Creators: Dickens, Geoff, Lange, Amanda and Picchioni, Marco
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Northamptonshire and East Midlands: Health
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Health & Society > Mental Health and Learning Disability
Faculties > Faculty of Health & Society > Nursing
Date: 17 August 2011
Date Type: Publication
Page Range: pp. 885-894
Journal or Publication Title: The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology
Volume: 22
Number: 6
Language: English
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14789949.2011.607509
ISSN: 1478-9949
Status: Published / Disseminated
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/6533

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