Exploring the consumer's and provider's perspective on service quality in community mental health care

A series of seven focus groups of community mental health care consumers were conducted to identify the factors that contributed to consumer satisfaction. Three major themes were identified: bonding with providers, provider competence/knowledge, and cultural/religious competence. These findings are compared with findings from several healthcare satisfaction studies. Four focus groups with providers were also conducted to identify barriers to service quality. The major theme identified was that providers strive to have more time with consumers but struggle with large caseloads and large amounts of paperwork. An important finding is that consumers want to have their culture and religion seamlessly woven into service delivery. Potential explanations for the consumers' and providers' discrepant perspectives, conclusions and future areas for research are explored.