Obstacles to continuity of care in young mental health service users' pathways - an explorative study

BACKGROUND: Users of mental health services often move between different primary and specialised health and care services, depending on their current condition, and this often leads to fragmentation of care. The aim of this study was to map care pathways in the case of young adult mental health service users and to identify key obstacles to continuity of care. METHOD: Quarterly semi-structured interviews were performed with nine young adults with mental health difficulties, following their pathways in and out of different services in the course of a year. RESULTS: Key obstacles to continuity of care included the mental health system's lack of access to treatment, lack of integration between different specialist services, lack of progress in care and inadequate coordination tools such as ‘Individual Plan’ and case conferences that did not prevent fragmented care pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Continuity of care should be more explicitly linked to aspirations for development and progress in the users' care pathways, and how service providers can cooperate with users to actually develop and make progress. Coordination tools such as case conferences and ‘individual plans’ should be upgraded to this end and utilised to the utmost. This may be the most effective way to counteract the system obstacles.