Study On Core Competencies Of Mental Health Service Providers

Competency is the combination of knowledge, skills and personal traits required for effective performance. The core competencies of mental health service providers are the basic competencies that all mental health service providers should possess. The competency of mental health service providers is important for the mental health and well-being of clients, the performance and job satisfaction of mental health service providers as well as the development of mental health services.At present, most studies on competencies of mental health service providers conducted in some developed countries have focused on identifying knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for practice, with some efforts to apply these requirements to some competency domains that are easily investigated. To date, significantly less attention has been focused on how to assess the identified competencies among trainees and practitioners. Among the several related studies in China, some constructed competency models of mental health service providers, by learning from foreign Behavioral Event Interview, but they are not ideal. Some obtained competency structure of mental health service providers, by using questionnaires, but because of the small sample size and other factors, it needs to be improved. Some found no significant difference in the competency level among mental health services providers with different educational level, specialty, years of service and so on. Such research results do not match the experiences and expectations. Furthermore, the existing researches can not reflect the competency status quo of mental health service providers in all areas either because the sample size is too small or research subject is confined to the schools or universities. Therefore, this study focused on the following issues: developing a questionnaire which can reflect core competencies of the mental health service providers in all areas; surveying the status quo of the competency of mental health service providers in all areas; investigating the performance difference among mental health service providers with different levels of competency, testing the predictive validity of the questionnaire on mental health service providers' competency.This study used questionnaires and interviews to investigate the mental health service providers' core competencies. In the first study, an original questionnaire, based on the initial structure of the mental health services providers' competency was developed the through open interviews with six senior experts in mental health service areas working in universities, research institutions, hospitals or private psychological counseling agencies, and with literature analysis. Then the preliminary test questionnaire was constructed by testing mental health service providers in a small area, and doing item analysis and exploratory factor analysis of the data obtained. After that the final questionnaire was made by surveying the mental health service practitioners working in universities, schools, hospitals, private psychological counseling agencies nationwide. The structure of mental health service providers' competency was found through the exploratory factor analysis of data obtained. The internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire for mental health service providers'competency was tested by using Cronbach's a coefficient. The construct validity was tested through confirmatory factor analysis. In the second study,1592 mental health service providers throughout China were investigated with the self-develpoed questionnaire. The differences of the competency level among mental health services providers with different educational level, specialty, years of service and so on were examined. Furthermore, seven mental health service providers were interviewed by means of telephone, as the supplement for the large-scale survey. In the third study, mental health service providers' work satisfaction and clients' satisfaction were introduced as indicators for performance assessment of mental health service providers with different competency levels. The performance study consists of two sub-studies. In sub-study1, the performance evaluation was based on questionnaire survey. Forty-two mental health services providers with different competency levels, working in universities, general hospitals, private psychological counseling agencies, and their clients were surveyed with the evaluation manual about satisfaction on mental health service. In 2-3 months, the self satisfaction of mental health service providers and clients'satisfaction on the mental health service were investigated continually. In sub-study2, the performance evaluation is based on structured interviews. The interviewees were the 10 clients of the 10 mental health service providers who received performance tracking. Through telephone interviews, the clients'satisfaction, the evaluation of mental health service providers'competency and the clients' expectations form mental health service providers were investigated in depth.The results show that:(1) The core competencies of mental health service providers contain five factors: general traits, professional qualities, knowledge, professional skills and professional ethics.(2) The questionnaire on mental health service providers' competency has good reliability and validity, so it is a better tool to assess the competency of mental health service providers.(3) Chinese mental health service providers' self-evaluation scores on their competency are mostly low. As for specific competencies, the top 10 are confidentiality, listening, patience, responsibility, enthusiasm, acceptance etc., which are mainly related with professional ethics and personality; the bottom 10 are psychological tests, humanistic knowledge, expertise, theory application, problem identification etc., which are mainly related with knowledge and skills.(4) Some factors such as educational level, years of service, with or without professional credentials, serving as supervisors or not and so on have greater influence on Chinese mental health service providers'competency. Other factors such as specialty, service delivery agency, region and gender etc. have smaller influence.(5) The overall level of mental health service providers' competency has a significant impact on their own service satisfaction. The client satisfaction is impacted mainly by mental health service providers'competency of establishing relationship. The client satisfaction has significant correlation with mental health service providers'own service satisfaction.(6) The clients'evaluation on mental health service providers'competency has high consistency with their expectations. The factor structure of the questionnaire on mental health service providers'competency coincides well with the expectations of clients from mental health service providers.There is an innovation both in theory and methodology in this study. In terms of theory, this study found that the core competencies of mental health service providers consisted of five factors:general traits, professional qualities, knowledge, professional skills and professional ethics. Based on these factors, the questionnaire on mental health service providers' competency can well reflect competencies of mental health service practitioners in the context of Chinese culture. This study, for the first time in China, investigated the performance differences of mental health service providers with different levels of competency, and found that the level of mental health service providers' competency has a significant impact on their own service satisfaction, and the clients' satisfaction has significant correlation with mental health service providers' own service satisfaction. In terms of method, this research combined theoretical research and empirical research, quantitative research and qualitative research. In the status survey, investigations were conducted both for the overall situation around the country and the in-depth research in small range. In the performance evaluation, mental health service providers' own service satisfaction and the clients' satisfaction were investigated at the same time. The correlation between the service providers' satisfaction and the clients' satisfaction and the correlation between satisfaction and mental health service providers'competency were examined.In terms of application value, the self-develpoed questionnaire on mental health service providers' competency can be used as a tool for the assessment on core competencies of mental health service practitioners. The results of this study can provide reference for training, recruitment and management on mental health service providers as well as for service providers' self-improvement.This study is a preliminary exploration on core competencies of mental health services providers. With the development of mental health services, the future study should take a more comprehensive stratified sampling and more diverse methods to gradually bring about improved and in-depth researches on competencies of mental health services providers.