Sustainability of a person-centered ward atmosphere and possibility to provide person-centered forensic psychiatric care after facility relocation.

OBJECTIVE: This longitudinal study aims to assess the sustainability of staff perceptions of ward atmosphere and their possibility to provide person-centered forensic psychiatric care after relocation to new hospitals that aimed to provide supportive work conditions for the staff to be able to perform care of high quality.

METHODS: In this study we only present the result for the repeated measures, that is, only the individuals that performed both the questionnaires at baseline and at the three follow-ups. Data were collected prospectively between 2010 and 2016; before (baseline) and after relocation of the forensic psychiatric clinics to new buildings, i.e., after six months (follow-up 1), after one year (follow-up 2) and after two years (follow-up 3), respectively. Data were obtained by employing structured validated questionnaires.

RESULTS: The main findings of this study display an improvement in the staff assessment of a person-centered atmosphere from baseline to follow-up 3 in the domains of safety, everydayness and community where safety was evaluated the highest. No sustainable significant changes were found concerning staff's assessment of the support for them to provide person-centered care.

CONCLUSION: The findings show sustainability of person-centered ward atmosphere in forensic psychiatric care according to staff's assessment after relocation from traditional health care facilities to evidence-based designed premises. In this study the increased staff perception of the possibility to provide person-centered care in the new facilities could not be revealed as sustainability over the two years of follow-up.