Negotiating the coresearcher mandate – service users’ experiences of doing collaborative research on mental health

Abstract

Purpose: Traditionally, the voices of service users have been silent in research into mental health issues. A Norwegian research network, however, recognizes the importance of involving service users as coresearchers and initiated a training program in research methodology and design intended to empower them as active participants in research projects. In this article, we explore how these coresearchers with a mental health service user background experience their participation in projects as well as in attending the training: What is it like being a service user coresearcher in collaborative studies on issues in mental health? How do coresearchers negotiate their roles and mandate? Method: We used focus groups as our data collection method, transcribed the group discussions verbatim, and analyzed the transcriptions using qualitative methodology. We then took the preliminary analyses back to the participants for discussion, auditing, and reanalysis. Results: We identified themes that represent important social processes around which the participants developed a consensual understanding: self-definition, constructive differentiation and negotiations. Conclusion: Our findings generate hypotheses on how participatory research into mental health issues can be fruitfully organized, in a way that empowers service users to active and constructive participation.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Participatory research on issues in mental health holds potential for empowering service users.

• Collaborating with service users in research puts weight on the lived experiences of mental distress and on the expertise of the first person perspective.

• Organizing a formal training and peer group context in this kind of research can contribute to the service user coresearchers process of defining their own mandate in the research process as well as to help them constructively differentiate themselves from the roles of other researchers.

Keywords::

• Service user involvement in research
• mental health research
• empowerment
• focus groups

Acknowledgments

We thank the group of MoodNet coresearchers for their participation in this study.

Declaration of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article. The authors received funding for this study from Helse Førde and MoodNet. One important intervention explored in this study is coined “The Research School for Service User Co-researchers.â This five-day training program in qualitative methodology and theories of science was developed by experienced researchers from MoodNet in collaboration with faculty from the Group for Qualitative Research on Mental Health at the University of Bergen. The research school was funded by MoodNet.