The importance of family and service provider involvement with service users from three perspectives in a South African context.
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Recovery-oriented practice as a treatment approach for psychiatric disabilities is still an emerging area in the mental health field in South Africa.Existing research in recovery and recovery-oriented practice for serious mental illness in South Africa have thus far focused on exploring the perception of recovery among South African service users and their caregivers (Brooke-Sumner, 2016;De Wet et al., 2015;De Wet & Pretorius, 2021;Gamieldien et al., 2023).Recovery-oriented psychosocial interventions, including community-based psychosocial programs and peer-led recovery group interventions (Asher, et al., 2023;Brooke-Sumner, 2016;Brooke-Sumner et al., 2018), have also been developed and tested for its efficacy.Alongside these research developments, the newly adopted South African National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan 2023-2030 is also advocating for recovery-oriented practice in public mental health care by incorporating recovery values and principles into its latest policy (South African National Department of Health, 2023).Social support is one of the core facilitators of recovery for service users in both high- (Garverich et al., 2021;Leamy et al., 2011;Van Weeghel, et al., 2019) and low-and-middleincome countries (Brooke-Sumner et al., 2014;De Wet et al., 2015;De Wet & Pretorius, 2021).Furthermore, the South African National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan 2023-2030 promotes the value of "social support and integration" in the public mental health care system, emphasizing that "maximum support should be provided to families, carers, and communities of those with mental illness to broaden the network of support and care…" (South African National Department of Health, 2023, p. 32).Now, more than ever, there is a growing need for workforce development based on the principles of recovery (Anthony, 1993) for clinicians in South Africa to ensure the successful adoption of recovery-oriented practice in mental health care.However, there are very few studies that have examined the perspectives of service providers (Bila, 2019;Chisholm et al., 2023;Gamieldien et al., 2022) on the delivery of recovery-oriented practice.Furthermore, there is still limited knowledge of how service users, caregivers, and service providers conceptualize support guided by recovery-based principles and values.This paper thus explored the perceptions of mental health service users, caregivers, and service providers in South Africa understand the role of clinical and social (e.g., caregiver) support using a recovery framework, to enrich the body of knowledge on recovery and recovery-oriented practice in South African contexts.
Source: PubMed
Authors: Anneliese de Wet, Mihoko Maru
Institutions: Boston University, Boston Medical Center
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4394740897