The vicious cycle of functional neurological disorders: a synthesis of healthcare professionals’ views on working with patients with functional neurological disorder
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The objective of this review was to synthesise studies which address the views of healthcare professionals (HCPs) towards patients with functional neurological disorder (FND). An interpretive systematised review was conducted. Seven databases were searched using a comprehensive search strategy (MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, CINAHL, PsychINFO, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health, and Scopus). Qualitative studies and those using survey methods were included. An inductive approach to thematic analysis was used to identify concepts from the data and to synthesise the results. The views of 2769 HCPs were represented in 11 included articles. The overarching theme across the articles was uncertainty: about making the diagnosis of FND, about professional roles, and about optimum management. Fear was also a common theme: of saying the wrong thing, of offending patients, or of breaking the therapeutic relationship. If all HCPs felt uncertain about how to manage patients with FND and avoided them by passing them on to another discipline, then a “vicious cycle” is formed in which patients are passed from one professional to another but without receiving clear, honest information, or effective treatment. HCPs would benefit from increased training on FND and clear clinical pathways to alleviate feelings of uncertainty.Implications for rehabilitationEvidence-based or, at the very least, consensus-based multi-disciplinary care pathways for the assessment and treatment of patients with functional neurological disorder are required to improve equitability of services.Training packages for healthcare professionals need to be developed, evaluated and implemented in order to improve confidence of making and explaining the diagnosis and to reduce stigma of functional neurological disorders.Improved input for patients with functional neurological disorder is likely to occur if healthcare professionals are open, honest and use effective communication skills, both with their patients and fellow healthcare professionals. Evidence-based or, at the very least, consensus-based multi-disciplinary care pathways for the assessment and treatment of patients with functional neurological disorder are required to improve equitability of services. Training packages for healthcare professionals need to be developed, evaluated and implemented in order to improve confidence of making and explaining the diagnosis and to reduce stigma of functional neurological disorders. Improved input for patients with functional neurological disorder is likely to occur if healthcare professionals are open, honest and use effective communication skills, both with their patients and fellow healthcare professionals.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.032 | 0.080 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.011 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".