Integrating service user participation in mental health care: what will it take?

Abstract

Participation in mental health care poses many challenges for mental health service users and service providers. Consideration of these issues for improving the integration of service user participation in mental health care can help to inform integrated care within health care systems, broadly. This paper argues for practicing greater empathy and teaching it, stigma reduction, changing what we measure, valuing the intrinsic aspects of care more, employing more people with lived experience within mental health services, raising the visibility of service users as leaders and our teachers within services and redefining integrated care from the service user perspective.