Personal-recovery-oriented community mental healthcare: qualitative evaluation of a developmental project

OBJECTIVES: Mental healthcare is commonly aimed at reducing symptoms in individual service users. When only symptomatic recovery is addressed, not all service users experience sufficient recovery, and when care is aimed only at individuals (instead of the neighbourhood), not all people in need of mental healthcare are reached. This study evaluated a project that aimed to improve mental healthcare in a neighbourhood, by improving healthcare providers’ outreach to the residents living in the neighbourhood, by improving collaboration among healthcare providers and focussing on the residents’ personal recovery. This project was carried out by several public health services. It aimed to change the goal of mental healthcare provided in the neighbourhood from symptom reduction to personal recovery. DESIGN: The study included qualitative focus groups and inductive content analysis. SETTING: Primary and secondary mental healthcare that healthcare workers from different healthcare services provided. PARTICIPANTS: The evaluation was conducted through three focus group interviews with services users, their friends and relatives, neighbourhood residents, neighbourhood representatives and the healthcare services that were involved (n = 24). RESULTS: Evaluation indicated that the most valued part of the project was the utilisation of peer workers at the initiation of mental healthcare. Improved communication among healthcare providers that the project fostered was also highly regarded. The aim of the project to align it with existing initiatives in the neighbourhood was also considered important, although it was difficult to achieve. CONCLUSIONS: The project did not find a panacea for recovery-oriented community mental healthcare. A variety of its components did, however, contribute to the mental health of the community residents.