The experience of adolescent inpatient care and the anticipated transition to the community: Young people's perspectives

This study explored adolescents' perspectives of inpatient mental health care, focussing on aspects of the inpatient environment they anticipated would help or hinder their transition back home. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 adolescent inpatients; transcripts were analysed thematically. Participants experienced inpatient treatment as offering a mix of benefits (e.g., supportive relationships) and drawbacks (e.g., living in a “fake world”). They anticipated the transition home as providing opportunities for personal growth and consolidation of new coping skills, but also posing challenges concerning re-entering the “real world” after the experience of being “wrapped in cotton wool”. Self-determination theory and attachment theory offer two potential frameworks for understanding these opportunities and challenges. Inpatient care has the potential to foster key mechanisms for adaptive development, creating a platform for developing positive future behaviours. Community teams should work closely with inpatient units to support the generalisation of the young person's newly acquired coping skills.