TITLE:
Personal recovery and involuntary mental health admissions: The importance of control, relationships and hope
AUTHORS:
Marianne Wyder, Robert Bland, David Crompton
KEYWORDS:
Mental Health; Recovery Framework; Users’ Experiences; Involuntary Treatment
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.5 No.3A,
March
30,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Purpose: Involuntary
mental health admissions remain a highly contested area in law, policy and
practice. There are growing concerns about the effectiveness and potential harms
of using coercion to enable treatment. These concerns are heightened by the
worldwide shift to recovery oriented care, which emphasizes the importance for
mental health consumers experiencing self- sufficiency, control and having
input into their own treatment. Involuntary treatment challenges these very
principles. Methods: For this study we adapted Noblit and Hare Meta Ethnography
methods and synthesized the themes of seven qualitative studies which focused
on the experiences of involuntary mental health admission. Results: Seven
overarching dimensions were identified as either hindering or facilitating recovery,
namely: 1) having input into own treatment; 2) shared humanity; 3) power imbalance/
balance; 4) freedom and control; 5) ability/inability to incorporate the episode/experience;
6) treatment factors; and 7) importance of relationships. Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that
the recovery framework, in particular the concepts of hope, relationships and
control are very relevant in the context of involuntary settings.