Service users' views regarding user involvement in mental health services: A qualitative study

Background: Service user involvement is emphasised in many strategies, plans and declarations globally. However, in practice, service user involvement is not always achieved and remains at a tokenistic level. Objectives: To explore the views of service users on user involvement in mental health service. Design: Explorative descriptive study design. Setting: The study was conducted in one psychiatric hospital and in two mental health organisations in western Finland. Methods: The data was generated through three focus group interviews and analysed with qualitative content analysis. Results: User involvement means that people using mental health services are respected, listened to and can act in co-operation with professionals so than they feel that they can influence their own care and treatment. The participants articulated concrete factors that promote or inhibit user involvement. Service user involvement can be enhanced by strengthening service users' position, by developing the mental health care system and by specific training for professionals. Conclusions: The views of service users in this study concerning the realisation of user involvement and the factors promoting and preventing it were realistic. They are basic elements of patient-centred care and of all human interaction. Our participants described service user involvement in their own care and treatment. They emphasised the need to have more information, and wanted to be more involved in decision-making about their own care and treatment. They called for better care planning and co-ordination as one way to increase service user involvement. These also have implications for mental health services at the Dsystem level.