A Qualitative Evaluation of Nurses' Perceptions of De-Escalation and Resilience Training for Workplace Violence Prevention.

Inpatient mental health services provide care to individuals experiencing acute mental health crises and are intended to establish safety and therapeutic support. However, the imperative of maintaining safety and mitigating risk often conflicts with consumers' autonomy and preferences (Reid et al. ). Furthermore, coercive practices such as seclusion and restraint persist in the inpatient setting (Hawsawi et al. ). Eschewing paternalism, contemporary philosophy of mental healthcare has shifted toward partnership, active consumer participation and recovery‐focused models of care (Davidson et al. ; Jørgensen et al. ). Internationally, mental health policy and professional standards consistently promote consumer collaboration as a cornerstone of effective and ethical care; guidelines and frameworks emphasise principles such as shared decision‐making, recovery orientation, and active consumer participation in treatment planning and service evaluation (Australian Government ; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence ; Sunderji et al. ; World Health Organization and United Nations ). To ensure ethical and evidence‐based mental healthcare, the inpatient setting must adopt these principles into practice. To enhance care, the dynamics of collaboration in the inpatient mental health setting must be better understood. Collaboration in mental healthcare encompasses partnership, respect, and shared purpose between consumers and clinicians (Olasoji et al. ). Recovery‐oriented practice can only be delivered with a collaborative approach, with consumers being active agents in their care, supported to make decisions consistent with their values and goals (Lau and Hutchinson ). Collaboration has been shown to enhance empowerment, treatment engagement, and adherence (James and Quirk ; Olasoji et al. ). Shared decision‐making (SDM), where consumers are actively involved in treatment choices and their preferences are valued, is a key strategy for advancing collaborative and consumer‐centred care (Elwyn et al. ; Huang et al. ). This practice enables consumers and clinicians to exchange information, discuss preferences and reach consensus on treatment decisions (Sagen et al. ). SDM enhances therapeutic relationships, fosters engagement and improves outcomes (Huang et al. ; James and Quirk ). Also of significance, consumers emphasise the importance of interpersonal connection and care in fostering collaborative relationships. Being treated with dignity, respect, and attentiveness provides a sense of safety and trust, which is essential for collaboration to occur (Olasoji et al. ; Oxelmark et al. ). Studies highlight the importance of nurses and other clinicians providing time, presence and attentiveness to establish continuity and genuine care (Oxelmark et al. ; Wolf et al. ). Such interpersonal engagement helps consumers feel valued and safe, providing the foundation for trust and collaboration. Despite developments in research, philosophy and policy, collaboration in mental healthcare is unrealised. Meaningful collaboration is constrained by entrenched cultural and structural barriers (Billsten and Benderix ; Faerden et al. ; Sagen et al. ). For example, institutional micro‐cultures may constrain the adoption of practices that espouse ideal principles of collaboration in mental healthcare (Carr ). Consumers are seldom consulted or meaningfully involved with treatment decisions, especially decisions related to medications (Laitila et al. ; Olasoji et al. ; Sagen et al. ). Furthermore, evidence suggests that consumer perspectives are often undermined, with their accounts dismissed as expressions of illness, leading to the marginalisation of their contributions into the planning of their own care (Laitila et al. ). Inpatient mental healthcare often involves physical restraint, involuntary detainment, non‐negotiated administration of medication and seclusion (Zugai ). There is a clear inconsistency between idealised collaboration in mental healthcare and practice. The aim of this study is to establish consumers' lived experiences of collaboration with clinicians within the inpatient mental health setting. Specifically, this study will focus on the lived experiences of consumers who were involuntarily hospitalised for psychotic mental illness.