Weber, Jackson (2022) Exploration of the Psychologist’s Role in Private Regional Hospital Allied Health Teams. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
The present study sought to explore the different roles a psychologist could take part in to support a regional private allied health hospital system, as requested by the system itself. The literature which was originally explored had many gaps in the role of what a psychologist does in a health care system. Role clarification is incredibly important in regional Australia where the lack of exposure to psychologists within a multidisciplinary team, leads to the psychologist being underutilised by the system to just being a ‘system tech’ which scores IQ results adding to the non-harmonic communication in the hospital system. The study interviewed 6 allied health professionals about the gaps in the current system and what benefit a psychologist could bring to the team. A thematic analysis of the interviews revealed employing a psychologist would improve the roles/sub-themes of assessing capacity, brief intervention for disorders, grief, and trauma, human resources/family conflict management, the psychologist as an educator for staff, family, and the patient, needed for patient outcomes/team working at the edge of their scope of practice, and increased likelihood of referral follow-through/increased access to psychological services. By providing these services the resulting effect would impact the hospital system and patients with improved patient outcomes, decreased readmission rates and length of stay, and increase patient satisfaction ratings. It is suggested that this study be furthered by future research into how the role of a psychologist operates in a system where it is already functioning and identify how the system is being compensated for the gaps it is filling within the community.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current – Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Wellbeing (1 Jan 2022 -) |
| Supervisors: | Rebecca Black |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Aug 2025 03:24 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Aug 2025 03:24 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Role clarity; multidisciplinary; healthcare; regional Australia; allied-health professionals |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52863 |
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