Producing different analytical narratives, coproducing integrated analytical narrative: a qualitative study of UK detained mental health patient experience involving service user researchers

Abstract

Involvement of people who use health services as researchers is increasingly widely practised internationally, but methodological enquiry into how involvement impacts on research findings is lacking. A qualitative study of the experiences of people detained under the UK Mental Health Act (1983) used secondary analysis to explore the extent to which mental health service user researchers produced different interpretive narratives to conventional university researchers working on the same research team, and the potential to coproduce integrated analytical narrative to inform service improvement. We found we were able to articulate a range of situated analytical narratives on the detained patient experience and, through negotiating what each narrative meant in relation to the others, to coproduce an integrated analytical narrative that moved beyond what was already known about the detained patient experience. We concluded that research involving mental health service user researchers can coproduce new knowledge that might usefully inform service improvement.

Keywords:

• narratives
• methodology
• mental health
• involvement
• participation
• psychiatric patients