Inpatients' and providers' experiences with user involvement in inpatient care

A qualitative study of inpatients' perspectives on what it means to be involved in their own care, and providers' experiences with encouraging user involvement in care planning and service provision is reported. Twenty semi-structured interviews with inpatients, fourteen log reports from providers and sixteen sets of written minutes from staff meetings constitute the study data. Differences were found between inpatient and provider perspectives. Inpatients reported few opportunities to have meaningful input in the decision-making regarding their care, while providers reported difficulty engaging inpatients into discussions or care planning. Although participants described providers as nice, understanding and supportive, these qualities did not always translate into their feeling seen and heard as unique individuals. When experiencing difficulty in engaging inpatients in existing forms of treatment, providers reported being aware of few options for them to try in increasing user involvement. Such different perspectives will need to be addressed in future efforts to increase service user involvement in inpatient care.