Professionals' performance in community mental health settings: A conceptual exploration

Abstract

This article reports the results of a 'concept mapping' exercise which was held to explore participants' views on what mental health professionals should be doing in order to provide care for people with severe and enduring mental health problems in the community. Participants came from user, carer and different professional backgrounds. The general principles underlying many of the views of participants were of empowerment and rehabilitation. Nevertheless, participants rated the more specialist and therapeutic interventions, particularly crisis prevention and intervention and the development of a good therapeutic relationship, as being more important than activities that are aimed at developing clients' integration into the community. The implications of these findings for the future development of a tool to assess professionals' performance are discussed.