From ideals to resignation - interprofessional teams perspectives on everyday life processes in psychiatric inpatient care

Introduction: Patients and ward staff describe psychiatric inpatient care as demanding, characterized by unpredictable events, yet research on interprofessional teams perspectives of everyday life processes in psychiatric inpatient care lacks. Aim: This study aims to explore everyday life processes in psychiatric inpatient care, as reported by staff in interprofessional teams. Method: A grounded theory design was used and 36 participants were interviewed. Results: The analysis resulted in a process-oriented core category From ideals to resignation. Related to this core category were three further categories: Knowing where to go, Walking a path of obstacles and Shifting focus from the patient's best interests to self-survival. The staff had ideals about care and collaboration, but a poor environment, power asymmetry, lacking structure and demands of managing chaos meant that they appeared to resign from putting their ideals into practice. Discussion: Different professions in general describe the same obstacles in everyday life on the wards but there are also profession-specific perspectives on distancing and feelings of abandonment. To our knowledge similar findings have not been reported in the international evidence. Implications: In order to support interprofessional teams to work according to their ideals, interventions such as Protected Engagement Time and reflective dialogues within the teams are suggested.