User involvement in interprofessional team meetings within services for substance use disorders

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Services Research
• Mental Health Services
• Addiction Treatment

Background:

• Individuals with substance use disorders (SUD) and co-occurring mental health conditions require comprehensive, coordinated care.
• Interprofessional team meetings aim to personalize services but often lack effective user collaboration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore service users' perspectives on interprofessional team meetings.
• To identify barriers hindering meaningful user involvement in these meetings.

Main Methods:

• Semi-structured interviews with five male service users (aged 27-36) with co-occurring SUD and psychiatric disorders.
• Observations of interprofessional team meetings.
• Phenomenographical data analysis.

Main Results:

• Users reported team meetings were ineffective, citing a lack of targeted processes and information.
• Observations indicated users were relegated to subordinate roles, diminishing their engagement.
• Key barriers included unclear roles, opaque practices, and the absence of user-specific knowledge.

Conclusions:

• Enhancing user involvement necessitates providing adequate information and clarifying roles.
• Emphasizing user knowledge and increasing professional awareness of collaboration's importance are crucial.
• Skills training to foster user engagement can improve meeting effectiveness.