Table 5 Exemplifying quotes related to interactions capturing non-verbal cues

Patients

I have to be looked after when it gets serious enough. I don’t say anything when I’m suicidal. I get very fixated and cunning. I’m not thinking about anything but dying. That’s why they know that they have to keep me protected. I am just doing it [suicide attempt]. When I got hospitalised I was just extremely depressed and started losing the ability to talk and the ability to express myself. I don’t think I realised I was hospitalised at first. I was completely confused…I got through this crisis, because they know me, and that is why I think it is important to be admitted to the same ward. They have seen it in the change of my mental state, the things I say and don’t say, my facial expressions. They have read me when I get truly, truly silent; then I am ill, and they watch me extra closely. I have survived because they have watched me like hawks. They have given me my personal freedom, but not too much

(Female, bipolar disorder, locked ward, sample 2)

Healthcare Professionals

Suddenly there may be a minor sentence such as ‘it is just for the best that the father has the child custody rights’. At the time I may think it is weird, feel a sense of unease and go back into the patent room and ask, «what did you mean by that?»…But a lot of times we don’t catch it at all, because you’re on to the next patient long before you really get to leave their patient room. Sometimes, when I’m at home I can feel my heart beating. Those are the times I’ve called back and discussed it with the team…I can feel it just by being with them, and many times, especially if I know the patient, I can feel it before they can express it with words. She can tell me to leave and say everything is fine, and I will tell her that I feel I don’t want to leave you; I will stay. And often, after a while, she can explain she had suicidal plans at that moment

(Female nurse, 24 years of experience, open rehabilitation ward, sample 3)