PhD scholarship top-up for Rebekah Rankin: Lived experiences at the Wandi Nerida residential care facility for eating disorders

Opportunity

This project falls under the broader umbrella of the clinical evaluation of Wandi Nerida—the first residential facility for the treatment of eating disorders in Australia. This project has been designed specifically to address the qualitative aspects of the broader clinical evaluation and sits alongside the quantitatively focused project submitted by Sinead Day. When taken together these projects collaboratively aim to provide a comprehensive evaluation of Wandi Nerida treatment facility by incorporating the key components of evidence-based practice:

1. Research evidence;
2. Clinical expertise; and,
3. Patient/consumer values, preferences, and characteristics.

Specifically, this project will investigate patients, carers’ and healthcare providers’ experiences, perceptions, and satisfaction with care at Wandi Nerida. The proposed study will assist in providing greater insight into the treatment experience and journey of patients and their carers’, from a position of participants’ sense of self, identity, culture, autonomy, and recovery journey. It will also explore the impact of practitioners’ lived experience on the recovery and wellbeing of patients, and the experiences of health care providers in the delivery of care.

Project Objective

• Explore the experiences of individuals undergoing treatment at Wandi Nerida, as well as the experiences of their carers and health care providers—including lived-experience service providers;
• Collaborate with the broader research evaluation team in the dissemination of findings in the form of publications that will be submitted to relevant refereed research journals for consideration of publication;
• Collaborate with industry partner, the Butterfly Foundation, to provide information to support the dissemination of findings to the key policy/decision makers, as well as to the media, consumers, and public.

Long-term objectives:

• Build an evidence base to inform the ongoing development of the residential model of care in the treatment of eating disorders.
• Build an evidence base to support the future, sustainability and funding of residential treatment for eating disorders both in Australia and internationally.