Background: Ontario mental health policy calls for the participation of service users in mental health organizations, but no studies have examined the extent to which this is occurring.
Aims: This study measures the extent to which service users participate in Ontario, Canada community mental health organizations and measures the attitudes toward service user participation in planning and in employment.
Methods: Members of the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addictions Programs were invited to participate in a modified form of the Consumer Participation Questionnaire, created by Kent and Read (1998) for New Zealand.
Results: Participation in Ontario community mental health organizations was present in this order: planning, membership on boards of directors, attendance at staff training, policy, staff hiring, and teaching at staff training. Compared with New Zealand, the prevalence of participation was higher in Ontario, but attitudes toward participation were similar. The role with the highest prevalence of participation, planning, was the same for both locations.
Conclusions: An updated New Zealand study is called for, as is a more continuous method that includes various voices for measuring participation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BABBIE, E. & RUBIN, A. (2001) Research Methods for Social Work. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
2.
BOWL, R. (1996a) Involving service users in mental health services: social services departments and the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. Journal of Mental Health (UK), 5(3), 287–303.
3.
BOWL, R. (1996b) Legislating for user involvement in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 42(3), 165–180.
4.
CAMPBELL, P. (2001) The role of users of psychiatric services in service development – influence not power. Psychiatric Bulletin, 25, 87–88.
5.
CRAWFORD, M.J., ALDRIDGE, B.K., RUTTER, D., MANLEY, C., WEAVER, T., TYRER, P. & FULOP, N. (2003) User involvement in the planning and delivery of mental health services: a crosssectional survey of service users and providers. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 107, 410–414.
6.
DAMMAN, E.J. (1997) ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’: continuing controversies and their implications for mental health professionals. Clinical Psychologist, 17(7), 733–756.
7.
DIAMOND, B., PARKIN, G., MORRIS, K., BETTINIS, J. & BETTESWORTH, C. (2003) User involvement: substance or spin?Journal of Mental Health, 12(6), 613–626.
8.
EVANS, C.J. & McGAHA, A.C. (1998) A survey of mental health consumers' and family members' involvement in advocacy. Community Mental Health Journal, 34(6), 615–623.
9.
FRANCES, A.J., WIDIGER, T.A. & SABSHIN, M. (1991) Psychiatric diagnosis and normality. In The Diversity of Normal Behavior: Further Contributions to Normality (eds D. Offer & M. Sabashin), pp. 3–38. New York: Basic Books.
10.
GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO (1999) Making It Happen: Operational Framework for the Delivery of Mental Health Services and Supports. Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario.
11.
GRANT, J. (2006) Embracing an emerging structure: the employment of psychiatric survivors in Ontario community mental health organizations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
12.
HEALTH CANADA (2002) A Report on Mental Illnesses in Canada. Ottawa: Government of Canada.
13.
KENT, H. & READ, J. (1998) Measuring consumer participation in mental health services: are attitudes related to professional orientation?International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 44(4), 295–310.
14.
LAWSON, M., STRICKLAND, C. & WOLFSON, P. (1999) User involvement in care planning: the Care Programme Approach (CPA) from the users' perspective. Psychiatric Bulletin, 23(9), 539–541.
15.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH (1997) Moving Forward: The National Mental Health Plan for More and Better Service. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Health.
16.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH (1998) Blueprint for Mental Health Services: How Things Need to Be. Wellington, NZ: Mental Health Commission.
17.
MOGULOF, M.B. (1974) Advocates for themselves: citizen participation in federally supported community organizations. Community Mental Health Journal, 10, 66–76.
18.
MOORE, D.S. & McCABE, G.P. (2003) Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4th edition). New York: W.H. Freeman.
19.
ONTARIO PEER DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE http://opdi.org/our-members/what-is-csi.php (accessed 16 August 2006).
20.
ONYETT, S., HEPPLESTON, T. & BUSHNELL, D. (1994) A national survey of community mental health teams: team structure and process. Journal of Mental Health, 3(2),175–194.
21.
PECK, E. & BARKER, I. (1997) Users as partners in mental health – ten years of experience. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 11(3), 269–277.
22.
PECK, E., GULLIVER, P. & TOWEL, D. (2002) Information, consultation or control: user involvement in mental health services in England at the turn of the century. Journal of Mental Health, 11(4), 441–451.
23.
REES, N. (1994) Mental illness: the search for a workable definition. International Journal of Mental Health, 22(4), 23–38.
24.
SALKIND, N.J. (2004) Statistics for People Who Think They Hate Statistics (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
