Research project Mentalizing Skills for staff at psychiatric wards
In this project, we will test the Mentalizing Skills programme for psychiatric inpatient and acute care staff. Mentalizing Skills training aims to improve staff collaboration with patients.
During 2025, preparatory studies were conducted with the support of planning grants from Forte.
Previous studies from the UK and Germany have shown promising results for Mentalizing Skills (MZ-S) training for health professionals, i.e. a brief training programme that focuses on skills to communicate in an alliance-building way with emphasis on increasing understanding of the patient's mental life. However, to date, no large randomised controlled trial of MZ-S training for psychiatric staff has been conducted.
The aim of the 2025 planning year was to prepare for such a large study in Swedish psychiatric clinics.
The project started in January 2025 with a survey and interview study aimed at ward managers around Sweden in psychiatric inpatient and acute care about the need and interest in MZ-S training for staff. During 2025, an international working group was formed to develop a curriculum for the MZ-S programme. A future step is to translate the training programme into Swedish.
During 2026, we will apply for research funding for a larger project in which the training programme is tested and evaluated within Swedish psychiatric inpatient care. The project will begin with a pilot study at one psychiatric inpatient unit, aimed to test the feasibility of the training programme and the measurement methods.We plan to use measures related to working alliance, mentalisation skills, knowledge of mentalisation techniques, attitude towards patients with severe mental health problems, stress and workload. Objective data will be collected on threats, violence and occupational injuries, as well as on the frequency of forced hospitalisations, forced injections and restraints. In addition, a qualitative interview study with a group of participants is planned.
Subsequently, a randomised controlled trial is planned that will include 400 participants from 16 psychiatric wards and emergency departments in Sweden. That study is also planned to include a follow-up six months after completion. If a future randomised trial shows that the training intervention is effective, it could have major positive consequences for both patients and staff. The training programme requires relatively little time and financial resources, while the availability of competent teachers is good, which means that implementation can take place nationally.