- Title
- Reconnecting for mental health recovery through street soccer: the process of mental health consumers participating in a community street soccer program from a sub-acute psychiatric inpatient unit and after returning home
- Creator
- Lupton, Brigette Maree
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- In this study, I employed constructivist grounded theory methodology to examine the Community Street Soccer Program (CSSP) experiences of 14 people diagnosed with severe mental illness (SMI) as they participated from a sub-acute inpatient psychiatric rehabilitation unit (the Unit) and after returning home. All participants were recruited during admission to the Unit, which was located in the metropolitan centre of a large regional health district in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. All participants were able to give informed consent, were not experiencing an acute phase of illness, were predominantly male (13/14) and had attended the CSSP at least once at the time of recruitment. I engaged in concurrent data generation and analysis with each process informing the other, consistent with constructivist grounded theory techniques. Data generation spanned a period of 17 months. I conducted up to three in-depth semi-structured interviews with each participant, at three different time points. Participants were first interviewed during their admission and at two time points after returning home. I employed several strategies to analyse the data, including initial and focused coding, constant comparison, and additional grounded theory techniques of memoing, clustering and diagramming, and writing storylines. Data analysis culminated in the development of a theoretical model to explain participants’ experiences of the CSSP. My findings are comprised of two components. Firstly, participants experienced a shared basic social problem of disconnectedness. Disconnectedness was characterised as disengagement, unsatisfactory engagement and loss of hope for recovery. Participants experienced disconnectedness from their occupations, relationships with other people and themselves, and experienced it during times of worsened symptoms of mental illness and reduced perceived coping. The second component of the findings is the shared process of reconnecting for mental health recovery through street soccer (abbreviated to reconnecting), which participants undertook to address their experience of disconnectedness. CSSP participation was identified as a potential avenue for addressing disconnectedness, with reconnecting both contributing to and being influenced by mental health recovery. The process of reconnecting comprised three stages: i) exploring street soccer, ii) establishing belonging, and iii) evolving identity. Participants’ experiences of each stage spanned a continuum ranging from those that hindered reconnecting and ongoing CSSP attendance to experiences that facilitated reconnecting and continued participation. Sustained CSSP attendance relied on a combination of motivation and skill development factors, with the establishment and maintenance of social connectedness playing a key role. This study is significant as it provides a unique longitudinal consumer perspective of the facilitators and barriers of CSSP participation across inpatient and community contexts, which has not been previously addressed. This study also provides a new understanding of the role of the CSSP in the mental health recovery of people experiencing SMI. Drawing on the findings of this study, I identify essential intervention principles to maximise the facilitators and reduce the barriers of CSSP attendance among people within this population. I propose that it is essential for interventions to be flexible and autonomy supportive, empowering through skill development, focused on creating a supportive environment, drawing on the value of peer support and focused on fun. Based on the findings of this study, I also propose a FREE approach to the promotion of physical activity among people experiencing SMI, which involves finding the meaning of participation, recognising the individual’s zone of proximal development (ZPD), enacting scaffolding, and elevating social connectedness. Findings from this study have implications for people experiencing SMI, and strategies for maximising the mental health recovery benefits of CSSP participation are discussed. Additionally, there are implications for services providers because findings from this study reinforce the need for clearly defined and effective inter-sectorial partnerships, the need to recruit champion stakeholders based on attitudes and values aligning with health promotion and recovery, and the need for sufficient resources provision. A notable implication from this study is the need to provide scaffolding support for people experiencing SMI so as to facilitate CSSP participation. In addition, this study supports the case for occupational therapists to remain specialists in occupation. It also has implications for the profession in relation to challenging the assumed universal value of independence in relation to community participation.
- Subject
- grounded theory; mental illness; mental health; recovery; occupational therapy; leisure; physical activity; soccer; football
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1499063
- Identifier
- uon:54607
- Rights
- Copyright 2022 Brigette Maree Lupton
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 393 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |