Newly educated care managers’ experiences of providing care for persons with stress-related mental disorders in the clinical primary care context

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to explore how the care managers put the complex care manager task into practice and how they perceived their task, which was to facilitate effective, person-centred treatment for stress-related disorder concordant with evidence-based guidelines in primary care. DESIGN: This was a qualitative study using examination reports from the course for care managers. Systematic text condensation according to Malterud was used for the analysis. SETTING: Primary health care centres SUBJECT: Twenty-eight newly educated care managers in primary health care participated in the study. The median age was 50 (31–68) years. Twenty-seven were women and one was a man. Twenty-one were employed as nurses and seven as counsellors. RESULTS: The informants perceived the role as care manager as meaningful but at times complicated. To participate in teams and to work closely with the general practitioner was experienced as important. The co-ordinating function was emphasised as especially important, as well as the increased continuity in care. The dual role as care manager and counsellor was sometimes experienced as problematic. CONCLUSION: The informants took advantage of the knowledge they had attained during the course. They perceived themselves as being a bridge between patients and other professionals. The result of having dual roles at the primary health care centre unexpectedly revealed difficulties for some professionals. The nurses seemed more familiar with the new way of working.