26 uker - en kvalitativ studie om faktorer som har hindret tidlig oppdagelse av psykose, og betydningen av TIPS informasjonskampanjer for hjelpesøking

Abstract

Aim: To get knowledge about factors which prevent or delay patients with a long duration of psychosis from accessing psychiatric health care services at an earlier stage of their illness and their personal views on the impact of on-going informational campaigns on help-seeking behaviour. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight adult patients with first-episode psychosis with a duration of untreated psychosis lasting for more than 6 months. The analysis was inspired by the principles of qualitative content analysis and systematic text condensing. Results: Five main themes were identified, including: 1) Failure to recognize symptoms of psychosis, 2) difficulties expressing their experiences, 3) concerns about stigma, 4) poor psychosis detection skills among healthcare professionals, and 5) lack of awareness or understanding of TIPS and the TIPS Informational campaigns. Conclusions: Participants failed to understand the severity of their symptoms. Family members and others were often the first to recognize the symptoms. Initially symptoms were attributed to reasons other than development of a psychiatric illness. Participants reported that health care personnel had trouble successfully detecting psychosis. Collectively, these findings might indicate that knowledge about psychosis is lacking for some individuals in the population. The informational campaigns need to be carefully crafted to relay information to people who do not consider themselves as currently experiencing signs of psychosis. However, they might better be aimed directly at parents and health care staff rather than members of the core target group.