User-generated quality components for the evaluation of the cross-sectoral and -diagnostic quality of psychiatric treatment

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sebastian von Peter
• Subject Area: Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 538738623

Especially in the field of psychiatric care, the participation of patients in the definition and evaluation of quality is of high importance but is rarely implemented nationally and internationally. The proposed project builds on preliminary studies that show that the patient-generated development of instruments to assess the quality of psychiatric care is possible. The project uses a collaborative-participative research approach to develop quality characteristics to describe cross-sectoral and -diagnostic psychiatric care quality. It follows recent findings on co-design and co-evaluation of care services and policy documents on participatory research of the German Research Foundation and the German Ministry of Education. Instead of involving patients or other experts and representatives from this perspective only during the evaluation or consensus-building of already developed quality domains or instruments, in the present project they participate in all research phases and from the very beginning. In Module A, quality aspects from different data sources (literature research, interviews, and focus groups) are developed and integrated into quality components. In Module B, a participatory Delphi process takes place to evaluate and integrate these quality components and to place them on as broad a consensual basis as possible. The chosen collaborative-participative study design of the project should ensure that the quality components to be developed are anchored in the specific views and experiences of those who are primarily affected by this care. The project thus contributes to strengthening patient orientation and safety as well as the culture of participation in psychiatric care.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants