Addressing Principles of Recovery to Engage Consumers in Outpatient Treatment

Mental illness often requires hospitalization, with high readmission rates. One way to improve outcomes and reduce readmission rates is for consumers to attend outpatient appointments. However, a major challenge in delivery of mental health outpatient treatment is missed appointments. When consumers miss appointments for outpatient follow-up, they also miss an opportunity for recovery. Non-attendance rates in psychiatric outpatient clinics have been a topic of considerable interest and attendance at appointments has been used as an indicator of quality of service provision. Strategies used to address missed appointments have been met with minimal success in improving engagement in treatment and do not offer evidence-based guidance regarding solutions to this challenge. Simple measures to gain consumer feedback on levels of therapeutic alliance and engagement in shared decision-making are available and can be used in clinical sessions to support recovery-based care. Psychiatric mental health nurses can engage consumers in recovery-based services that have salience to motivate them to engage in treatment.