Psychological Flexibility as a Mechanism of Change in the Quality of Care in Health Care Settings: A Brief Review of Literature and Study Outline

The construct of psychological flexibility is emerging as a relevant variable for study of individual and organisational outcomes. This paper provides a brief review of literature on the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ACT in the workplace settings and outlines elements of the current study, seeking to investigate psychological flexibility as a change mechanism in the quality of care in health settings. It is hypothesised that enhancing psychological flexibility will have a positive effect on the quality of care delivered and the capacity of employees to cope with the demands of the workplace as evidenced in better psychological health and greater resilience. The study will utilise principles of participatory action research to deliver an ACT based intervention to enhance psychological flexibility. The proposed research is expected to contribute to the recognised lack of empirical work investigating the role that the concept of psychological flexibility may play in achieving organisational outcomes.