Patel Paras, Kennedy Angela, Carr Sarah, Gillard Steve, Harris Poppy, Sweeney Angela
Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle, UK.
Service User Research Enterprise, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, England.
J Ment Health. 2025 Feb;34(1):91-104. doi: 10.1080/09638237.2022.2069691. Epub 2022 Aug 13.
Successive governments have placed service users' experiences at the heart of mental health services delivery and development. However, little is known about service users' experiences of assessments and there is some evidence that assessments can cause harm.
To synthesise the qualitative literature on service users' experiences of undergoing mental health service assessments.
Literature was systematically searched, screened and extracted, following PRISMA guidelines. Several search strategies were employed, including electronic database searches, handsearching, and forward and backward citation tracking, to identify literature which contained data on service users' experiences of mental health assessments. Thematic synthesis was used to derive a set of themes underpinning these experiences.
Of the 10,137 references screened, 47 were identified as relevant to the review. Two main themes were identified: the importance of humanising assessment processes and experiences of service user agency, with each theme containing four sub-themes.
Findings highlight key factors determining service user experience. We identify key practice implications, contextualised within the literature on trauma-informed approaches and conclude that trauma-informed approaches may aid understanding and improvement of people's assessment experiences. Further research into the experiences of people from Black and minority ethnic communities is indicated.
历届政府都将服务使用者的体验置于心理健康服务提供与发展的核心位置。然而，对于服务使用者的评估体验知之甚少，并且有证据表明评估可能会造成伤害。
综合关于服务使用者接受心理健康服务评估体验的定性文献。
按照PRISMA指南，对文献进行系统检索、筛选和提取。采用了多种检索策略，包括电子数据库检索、手工检索以及前后向引文追踪，以识别包含服务使用者心理健康评估体验数据的文献。采用主题综合法得出支撑这些体验的一组主题。
在筛选的10137篇参考文献中，有47篇被确定与该综述相关。确定了两个主要主题：评估过程人性化的重要性以及服务使用者能动性的体验，每个主题包含四个子主题。
研究结果突出了决定服务使用者体验的关键因素。我们确定了关键的实践意义，并结合关于创伤知情方法的文献进行了情境化分析，得出创伤知情方法可能有助于理解和改善人们的评估体验的结论。建议对黑人和少数族裔社区人群的体验进行进一步研究。
