Healthcare is delivered in emotionally charged settings, where healthcare professionals experience a range of emotions on a daily basis. Their emotions can be influenced by not only patients but also team relationships, interactions and the workplace emotional climate. Furthermore, healthcare professionals may also arrive to work in a certain mood. Growing evidence from earlier research highlights that emotions can impact clinical performance and the safety of patient care, however research within this area is limited and fragmented. In order to further explore the role of emotions in patient safety, two main studies are currently being conducted within this project:
Healthcare is delivered in emotionally charged settings, where healthcare professionals experience a range of emotions on a daily basis. Their emotions can be influenced by not only patients but also team relationships, interactions and the workplace emotional climate. Furthermore, healthcare professionals may also arrive to work in a certain mood. Growing evidence from earlier research highlights that emotions can impact clinical performance and the safety of patient care, however research within this area is limited and fragmented. In order to further explore the role of emotions in patient safety, two main studies are currently being conducted within this project:
- A systematic review exploring the workplace triggers of emotions in the healthcare environment, the emotions experienced and the impact on patient safety
This systematic review aims to explore the triggers of emotions in the healthcare environment, the emotions experienced in response to triggers, and the impact of emotions/triggers on patient safety. - CASE – Conversations About Safety and Emotions
This study aims to explore the role of emotions in maternity practice and understand the influence of emotions on team work, job performance, patient care and patient safety.
This study will be conducted in the form of a programme of four interactive training workshops, which will each focus on an aspect of emotions and patient safety. The discussions captured in the workshops will be audio-recorded and used as data for this study. This study takes the form of a programme of four online interactive training workshops, with a mixture of teaching and group discussions. These workshops are multi-disciplinary in nature and include maternity clinicians including midwives and obstetricians as well as senior leaders. Each workshop is delivered by psychologists and a consultant obstetrician. The workshops will be delivered during scheduled training times for maternity healthcare professionals at an NHS Trust.
When developing this study, we took into account the barriers that NHS healthcare professionals face to taking part in research, including a lack of time to participate in research. Therefore, we adopted a more innovative and mutually beneficial approach to delivering research, where we would be able to provide healthcare professionals with evidence-based training and knowledge which they are able to apply to real life settings within their NHS workplace, whilst also collecting research data.
Research team:
Dr Raabia Sattar, Dr Jane Heyhoe, Professor Rebecca Lawton
For further info please contact: Raabia Sattar