Effect of an institutional development plan for user participation on professionals' knowledge, practice, and...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Mental Health Services Research
• Patient Engagement

Background:

• Governments promote user participation in healthcare through organizational changes.
• Professionals are key to implementing user participation initiatives.
• No controlled studies previously assessed the impact of such plans on professionals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of a development plan on professionals' knowledge, practice, and attitudes towards user participation.
• To evaluate the impact of enhanced user participation strategies in a mental health hospital setting.

Main Methods:

• A non-randomized controlled study involving professionals from three mental health hospitals.
• Implementation of a development plan focused on user participation in one hospital (intervention group).
• Comparison of changes in knowledge, practice, and attitudes using the Consumer Participation Questionnaire (CPQ) over 16 months in intervention and control groups.

Main Results:

• 438 professionals participated (55% response rate).
• No statistically significant differences were found between the intervention and control groups.
• The development plan had no measurable effect on professionals' knowledge, practice, or attitudes.

Conclusions:

• This is the first controlled study on the effects of a user participation development plan on mental health professionals.
• The implemented plan showed no measurable impact on professionals' knowledge, practice, or attitudes.
• Potential reasons for the lack of effect include plan quality, implementation process, or outcome measure suitability.