Page 139 - Demo

Primary mental healthcare: care professionals’ perspectives1376As a young healthcare provider, you’re still quite focused on yourself and cling to guidelines and protocols, but with this target group...those don’t really apply anymore, and you find yourself in a kind of swamp, and you just have to deal with it. (F2, GP)Participants note that patients often appear to struggle with the practical implementation of given advice and with organising their own care. Consequently, patients often return to the GP with the same type of symptoms.Participants consider themselves able to identify certain signs indicating (M)ID. However, acknowledge that they frequently miss MID in patients, resulting in overburdening the patient and initiating an inadequate MH trajectory because they do not adapt their approach to the MID. Those [patients with MID] need to be recognised to receive the appropriate care. I wonder: who is going to do that? I think it’s up to us [GPs] to identify them. (F4, GP)Moreover, when participants do signalise indicators of MID, discussing the possibility of MID with patients is found to be challenging as they do not always know how to approach it.Box 6.2. Theme 1: GPs’ and MHNPs’ struggles with adapting to challenging patient characteristics Practice-based insights that participants in our study deemed to contribute positively to the quality of primary mental health (MH) care for adults with mild intellectual difficulties (MID)aImprove knOwledge, experience, and affinity with the patient group y Improve practitioners’ confidence to rely on intuition, deviate from guidelines, and think outside the box by:- More focus on this patient group in (postgraduate) general practitioner (GP) training programmes - Easily accessible consultation with a colleague practitioner or ID physician who has knowledge and experience with this patient group Be attentive to the patient’s need for additional support y Within the GP practice. For example: the GP accompanying the patient to the appointment desk to schedule a follow-up appointment and ensuring that the practice’s website and practice are easily accessible for people with MIDy Outside the GP practice. For example: the practitioner looks up bus times with the patient, so that the patient can attend an MH service intake appointment on timeKatrien Pouls sHL.indd 137 24-06-2024 16:26