Navigating happiness

Aim

• to improve consumer engagement and outcome by shifting focus from symptom reduction to helping them living a meaningful life
• to improve therapeutic service availability and accessibility for regional and rural consumers; and trainings for clinicians in these areas
• to provide alternative approach for Clinicians to engage and provide mental health services.

Outcomes

Improved consumer engagement therapeutic services and alternative approach will benefit the patients.

Background

Mental Health consumers often require high level of support, such as psychiatry and nursing input, psychological services, occupational therapy and social work support.

During this stressful time of COVID-19 there was a need for clinicians to make progress towards a happier version of themselves and learn new approaches to face the inevitable challenges during the journey. Navigating Happiness is a four-week program developed to introduce the concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in a group setting.

Evaluation and results

Over 40 participants in West Moreton HHS (95 per cent completion rate) have completed the program with statistically significant improvement of their happiness level at post measurement and it maintains at three to six month follow up. Over 250 clinicians in Australia have attended its training,

Participant outcome is measured using Oxford Happiness Questionnaire which is a 25 item six-point Likert scale to measure overall satisfaction of life. Data is collected at three time points: Pre-group (session 1), Post-group (session 4), and three to six month follow up phone call.

Data analysis of pre- and post-scores (N = 34) showed statistically significant improvement of participant overall satisfaction in life (p <.01). More encouragingly, the improvement maintains (with additional small improvements) 3-6 months later, with data analysis showing statistically significance (N = 22, p < .05).

This project was presented at the 14th National Allied Health Conference (2021) for its significant achievement in providing mental health services to a diverse population in a creative way.

Lessons learnt

• Consumer engagement and outcomes are enhanced through improved therapeutic relationships when mental health services shift their focus from symptom reduction to helping consumers clarify and live by their values.
• Through training and understanding of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, research show a positive impact on staff burnout rate and carer fatigue. These will be the future focus of data collection.

References

Association for Contextual Behavioural Science State of the ACT Evidence | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (contextualscience.org)