Abstract

Author(s):

Whitney Lee¹ and Vicki Langan¹

Affiliations:

Neami National

The Physical Health Prompt (PHP) is a tool consisting of 28 strengths based close-ended (yes or no) questions developed primarily to guide conversations between staff and consumers to address health care needs. The PHP adheres to the National Health guidelines and was written through a co-design process in response to the poor physical health needs of individuals accessing Neami services. The PHP is intended to facilitate conversations where physical health concerns can be identified and then addressed through improving health literacy and engagement with primary health care providers, GPs, allied health professionals, alternative practitioners or relevant services.

Following the introduction of the original PHP in a boarding house program, staff discovered approximately 65% of residents identified as illiterate. In response, a co-design process was implemented involving mental health consumers and staff to develop an innovative version of the PHP tool to cater for different learning styles. The outcome was a Pictorial Physical Health Prompt (PPHP) designed specifically by consumers for consumers in community mental health setting using images to support the comprehension of each written question.

There is a growing awareness of the need to identify successful models of co-design in mental health services and useful strategies to support consumer participation in developing services and practice tools. The PPHP demonstrates how consumer participation can result in a collaborative and dynamic partnership to create meaningful outcomes. This presentation explores the learnings from the co-design process to develop the PPHP including benefits, challenges and mitigating strategies used during the process. This contributes to the growing body of knowledge around methods to implement consumer participation when developing resources for people living with a mental illness.