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As a representative of the sharing economy business model, TikTok, a short-form mobile video-sharing social networking platform, has numerous consumers worldwide. Based on the background of the dev...

There is increasing recognition of the value of consumer participation in advocacy and community activism. Among trauma survivors, finding a sense of purpose and a way to make meaning from the trauma experience has been termed "survivor mission," and may include a call to social action, involvement in social justice activities, or public speaking. The current study describes the development of a trauma-informed trauma-survivor speakers' bureau (CHATT) and presents quantitative and qualitative outcome findings. The CHATT program encompasses (1) a speaker training component, (2) public speaking activities, and (3) speaking support groups. Trauma survivors (

Research question: This study examines (a) the effect of consumer participative behavior (CPB) levels (low vs. high) on employee role ambiguity, (b) the influence of employee role ambiguity on empl...

Background: Developing recovery-oriented services, and ensuring genuine consumer participation in all aspects of services are central components of contemporary Australian mental health policy. However, attitudes of mental health professionals present a significant barrier. Given the positive impact of education on health professionals’ attitudes, particularly when consumers are involved, further exploration of consumer involvement in education is required.Aims: To enhance understanding of the role consumers can play within mental health nursing education.Method: A qualitative exploratory project was undertaken involving individual interviews with mental health nurse academics and consumer educators.Results: Two main themes emerged from nurse participants: Recovery in action, consumer educators were able to demonstrate and describe their own recovery journey; and not representative, some participants believed consumer educators did not necessary reflect views and opinions of consumers more broadly...

© 2016 Crown copyright. Youth participation in mental health settings is fundamental to service design and delivery, and is beneficial for the young people involved as well as the organisation. This paper presents the findings of an evaluation of a youth participation model where tiered participation was attempted in a clinical youth mental health setting. To inform the ongoing development and improvement of a youth participation model, an evaluation was conducted consisting of three focus groups with the youth consultants, consultations with management about the implementation of the tiered participation model, and a review of records. The purpose of this evaluation was to identify possible barriers to implementation early on so these could be addressed and a youth participation model that meets the needs of all key stakeholders could be developed. The findings of this evaluation and the way in which these findings informed the model's development are discussed.

During the period 2009–2012, Prita Mulyasari, a resident of Tangerang, Indonesia, was embroiled in a defamation dispute with Omni International Hospital. The legal case was instigated by the Hospital in response to a specific e-mail Prita sent to family, friends and colleagues about her health-care experience that subsequently went viral. In this paper, we discuss health consumer participation, medical dominance and digital ethics in a context of changing social norms and expanding use of digital technology in Indonesia. We argue that digital technology is changing health consumer participation and opening up avenues for challenge to medical privilege; however, this development is set against the use of the law to reinforce privilege and limit participation.

This study investigated how presence affected consumer intention to participate in a social commerce site (i.e., the consumer participation intention of social commerce through the presence role), based on the stimulus-organism-response framework. An organism's internal states in the social commerce context were composed of two tiered states: presence and affect/cognition. For the benefit of parsimony, social presence and telepresence were chosen as dimensions of presence, and usefulness and enjoyment were chosen as affect and cognition variables. The analysis results showed that social presence and telepresence played mediating roles between stimuli (interactivity and vividness) and the sequent internal states (usefulness and enjoyment). Both usefulness and enjoyment significantly influenced the response of the organism (i.e., the consumer participation intention of social commerce). Therefore, it was demonstrated that the mediating role of presence was of great significance in the social commerce context.

A movement toward relocalizing communities’ sources of food has been sparked in part by an urge to mitigate the adverse social, economic, and health impacts associated with a globalized food system. One example of an approach designed to mitigate these effects is the development of, and consumer participation in, alternative food systems (AFS). Factors that drive participation in AFS are largely unexplored. This article uses consumer interviews in Vermont to deepen our understanding of participation in AFS. We find that stacked beliefs about AFS drive participation, suggesting that barriers such as price and convenience may be overcome when these beliefs are more numerous. Implications focus on strategies for better promoting values and decreasing barriers in order to increase participation in and concomitant benefits of AFS.

The philosophy of recovery emphasises consumer participation and engagement in developing effective rehabilitation services. Assessment of consumer perspectives and concerns lies at the heart of responsive and relevant rehabilitation frameworks.The study aimed to document and examine patient and caregiver queries, at their first contact with Rehabilitation Services.The sample consisted of 124 consecutive inpatients and their accompanying caregiver/s, referred to Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, within a tertiary care psychiatric hospital in India. The data were collected using the semi-structured Inpatient Intake proforma during the intake session. The spontaneous queries raised by patients and/or caregivers were documented and content analysis identified themes, separately for patients and caregivers.The results indicated both similarities and differences in the frequency of themes that emerged from questions asked by patients and their caregivers. Two prominent themes centered on specific queries about rehabilitation services and the treatment and prognosis of the psychiatric illness.The findings have implications for training, practice and research in the field of psychosocial rehabilitation. Recommendations are made for training and practice frameworks to facilitate consumer-service provider communication towards the development of responsive recovery-oriented services.

Mental health policy emphasises the importance of consumer participation in mental health services. To align education with policy and orient future healthcare services to active consumer involvement, the potential of academics with a lived experience of mental illness to impact on student attitudes towards consumer participation needs to be examined. A cohort comparative study was undertaken comparing attitudinal change between undergraduate nursing students undertaking two different mental health courses, one nurse-led (n = 61) and one lived experience-led. Attitudes were measured through the Mental Health Consumer Participation Questionnaire. Within-cohort change was assessed via dependent sample t-tests, and degree of change was observed in each cohort, by comparing effect sizes. For the nurse-led course, attitudes on consumer involvement t (60) = -1.79, p 0.005 (95% CI: -2.84, -0.74) and consumer as staff t (60) = -4.12, p 0.005 (95% CI: -3.34, -1.16), positively changed with effect size r of 0.40 and 0.47, respectively. For the lived experience-led course, attitudes on consumer capacity t (109) = -3.63, p 0.005 (95% CI: -0.48, -1.41) and consumer as staff, t (109) = -5.63, p 0.005 (95% CI: -0.97, -0.46), positively changed, effect size r of 0.33 and 0.47, respectively. Mental health nursing education has a positive and selective influence on attitudes to consumer participation. Lived experience-led education was more beneficial in changing attitudes to consumer capacity and both types of education had similar positive effects on attitudes to consumers as staff.

Various efforts to give health care consumers a voice in decision-making have been attempted since at least the mid-twentieth century, with little success. In this article, I focus on one form of consumer participation: the requirement for community health centres in the United States to be governed by a consumer majority board. I examine the historical origins and theoretical assumptions motivating the requirement, summarize recent research that demonstrates how these assumptions are violated in practice, and suggest some prescriptive policy guidelines for the effective use of consumer participation in health care decision-making.

Advertisers have long been interested in the persuasiveness of cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns, and the authors extend this stream of research using two separate experiments that considers the effectiveness of the company's product versus cash donations. Findings from Study 1 indicate consumers perceive sponsoring companies of CRM campaigns less favorably when these companies make product rather than cash donations to their nonprofit CRM partners, and the level of consumer participation effort required in these campaigns does not moderate this effect. However, Study 2 introduces congruency as a potential explanation for these adverse effects and extends Study 1 by demonstrating that more (as compared to less) congruent product donations can eliminate the negative effects of product donations. Further, it confirms prior findings concerning the importance of sponsoring company–cause congruency. Campaigns designed with higher levels of both types of congruency (product donation–cause and company–caus...

The important role that consumers play in virtual communities as active participants in the value co-creation process has been increasingly acknowledged in recent marketing thought and practice. This study applies and extends the well-established value–attitude–behaviour (VAB) model to investigate how personal values and personality jointly influence consumers' attitude and behaviour towards their participation in virtual communities. The results show that while the resultant conservation value dimension has an indirect influence on consumer participation behaviour in virtual communities through attitude, the extraversion trait has a direct effect. The findings clarify our understanding of how personal values and personality differently predict consumer participation in virtual communities, and confirm the role of personal values and the VAB model in explaining this phenomenon. This study suggests significant implications for virtual community marketing.

The rise in educational enrolment is often cited as a possible cause of the trend to later childbearing in developed societies but direct evidence of its contribution to the aggregate change in fertility tempo is scarce. We show that rising enrolment, resulting in later ages at the end of education, accounts for a substantial part of the upward shift in the mean age at first birth in the 1980s and 1990s in Britain and in France. The postponement of first birth over that period has two components: a longer average period of enrolment and a post-enrolment component that is also related to educational level. The relationship between rising educational participation and the move to later fertility timing is almost certainly causal. Our findings therefore suggest that fertility tempo change is rooted in macro-economic and structural forces rather than in the cultural domain.

Online product recommendation agents (RAs) are gaining greater strategic importance as a critical touch-point between marketers and consumers. Yet, the role of consumer participation in using RAs has not been examined. This study shows that greater consumer participation in using an RA leads to more satisfaction, greater trust, and higher purchase intentions, related to the RA and its recommendations. In contrast, the financial risk (associated with the product under consideration) reduces satisfaction, trust, and purchase intentions, and it also moderates the effect of consumer participation on these same variables. The findings extend the literature and suggest actionable implications for marketing strategy.

People with a disability often find that common everyday items are not designed to fit their needs. One such item is the wallet. People frequently use a wallet to carry cash, credit cards, identification cards, and other personal items. Commercially available wallets often have small compartments and other design features that make them difficult to use by people with limited dexterity. Our goal was to create a wallet that is organized, easy to use, and secure. From user interviews and observations, we determined the key features that the wallet should have. The features for our wallet included magnetic fasteners, accordion-style pockets, a phone pocket, an ID window, and a security strap. These key features make this wallet much easier and safer to use than a more conventional wallet.

Background: Modern mental health strategies emphasize the necessity of user participation, but only a few studies examine how user involvement can be promoted effectively. Aim: To study the possible effect of an intervention program designed to (1) increase attention to user involvement and (2) increase user involvement at the inpatient departmental level. Methods: The study has a quasi‐experimental design, involving inpatient departments in five Norwegian Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs). Two CMHCs received the intervention, and were compared with three CMHCs that did not. The impact of the intervention was assessed with the Service User Involvement in Mental Health Scale (SUIM), a selection of items from the Consumer Participation Questionnaire (CPQ) and the Psychiatric Inpatient Experience Questionnaire (PIPEQ). One hundred and twenty‐three service providers, 51 in the intervention group and 72 in the comparison group, and 47 inpatients took part in the study. Results: Providers in the intervent...

This project evaluated consumer participation projects in five drug user treatment services in metropolitan and regional areas in three Australian states. Qualitative interviews were conducted with staff and consumers at two time points between 2008 from 2010 (n = 108). At baseline staff and some consumers focused on the stability of consumers to undertake representative roles. At postimplementation, the focus was on the stability of the organization, as frequent staffing changes and lack of adequate handover affected the progress of the projects. These issues combined with the perceived "noncore" status of consumer participation resulted in none of the projects achieving all of their agreed goals.

On-line communities provide a key tool for modern marketing and business strategies in the travel sector, but in-depth knowledge about the determinants and implications of traveler participation in these communities is lacking. This study integrates relational capital into the information systems continuance model in order to explain consumer participation in on-line communities. It also investigates the moderating effect on the participation process of two personal attributes-on-line interaction propensity and ability to contribute to the community. Last, it analyzes the effect of on-line communities on consumer behavioral intentions to use the on-line community's products and to follow the community's advice. Data from 456 members of on-line travel communities reveal that integrating relational capital into the information systems continuance model effectively predicts consumer participation in these communities. The data also confirm the moderating effect of selected personal attributes for determining consumer participation. Finally, participation in on-line travel communities has a positive effect on consumer intention to use on-line community products, and trust in the community has a positive effect on intention to follow advice obtained from the community.

Australian mental health system reform continues to be guided by an outdated vision to design a ‘perfect’ mental health system. It is then expected that consumers and carers will fit in to ...

Participation of people with disabilities is influenced by environmental and contextual factors. Disability awareness programmes aim to increase knowledge and acceptance of disability. This study evaluated a disability awareness programme for students aged 9-11 in Australia.Pre-post questionnaires and focus groups evaluated the programme. The intervention took a cognitive-behavioural approach including a person with a disability co-presenting. Students (n = 147) participated in two sessions of discussions, written activities, demonstrations and disability simulation activities.Significant improvements (p0.001) in knowledge, attitudes and acceptance of disability were evident immediately following the intervention. Focus group analyses further demonstrated these findings.A brief disability awareness programme for children improved knowledge, attitudes and acceptance of disability in the short-term. Further research is required to identify the potential impact of such programmes on inclusion and social participation of people with disabilities both inside and outside of the school setting.

The expectation that consumers and carers are active participants in all aspects of mental health service delivery has been a feature of Australian national mental health policy for more than a decade. More recently consumer and carer involvement has tended to broaden to incorporate education and research roles. While advancements in consumer and carer participation have been made, barriers to maximising the potential of these initiatives have been identified. The negative attitudes of mental health professionals have consistently been recognised as a major impediment to effective consumer and carer participation. Mental health professionals have been described as discriminatory and stigmatising towards consumers of mental health services. The aim of this paper is to consider the potential impact of attitudes that are less obviously negative and therefore arguably all the more powerful. The polarisation of consumers into opposites on the basis of their level of activity, and political correctness carried to the extreme, can render consumer advocacy as inappropriate or ineffective and therefore present major obstacles to consumer activity. Examples of polarisation and political correctness are presented and discussed in terms of their possible undermining of consumer led initiatives.

The objective was to explore a relationship between the economics of religion and the attributes of online patient groups by testing the hypotheses that (1) the harsher the entry requirements to an online patient group, the more active its members are; and (2) membership homogeneity in a given group is reflected in the educational level of group members. Online groups were randomly chosen from the 'Yahoo groups' category of 'Illnesses'. The hypothesis about entry requirements was narrowed by defining those requirements as either 'Open', 'Register', or 'Closed'. The number of messages over a 4-month period in each of 162 different groups was tallied. The hypothesis about membership homogeneity was refined by counting the citations in messages and by predicting the educational level of members (as reflected in the average word length of messages) based on these citation counts. Across 162 groups, the number of messages was significantly less in Open groups than in Register groups and less in Register groups than in Closed groups. Across 14 groups, the average word length of messages in a group positively correlated with the number of citations in that group. The hypothesis is supported that increased group entry barriers correspond to increased group message activity and members tend to be similar within a group. These attributes could be used to help design effective groups.

Mental health services worldwide are undergoing significant changes in philosophy and direction due to the rising influence of the consumer or service user movement. This paper explores some key developments in the history of social policy, legislative change and funding of mental health services in New Zealand, especially since the landmark 1996 Mason Report. The growth in consumer networks and consumer participation in the aftermath of this report at multiple levels of the mental health service system is examined, with a particular focus on the adoption of the recovery approach as the guiding principle for the nation's mental health strategy. Consumers and carers are now active in contributing to strategy, policy and service development, nationally and locally. Opportunities for advocacy, advice and input into the quality of service provision have increased for many people living with mental illness. However, although government policy and systems are designed to drive services towards consumer...

In writing about community participation in health, the term 'community' is used loosely and ambiguously. On analysis, it appears that there is a conceptual shift in health policy to thinking about involvement of consumers in health planning and programs rather than communities. This shift is consistent with a managerialist approach to planning health service delivery. Participative processes are perceived as being initiated and directed by health administrators. Participants in the processes are to be 'representative' of health service consumers, rather than whole communities. However, in many Australian rural communities, there are enduring traditions of community participation in providing governance for local hospitals, developing infrastructure for general practice services, and providing in-kind support. Participation in health services is embedded in the way the community functions. Acknowledging and understanding the ways in which 'community participation' and 'consumer participation' are different may result in more effective participative processes. (author abstract)

The present paper reports on the application of consumer participation principles in the development of social work practice standards. The Australian Association of Social Workers Practice Standards Committee consulted with 48 consumers of social work services from four different practice areas about aspects of social work practice. Participants were asked their expectations of social workers. Their responses emphasised the importance of the social worker–client relationship, confidentiality, practical support and client-empowering practice. The consultations contributed to the development of the Standards and the attributes cited were incorporated and are explicit in sections dealing with areas such as mutual engagement and good communication skills. The process of developing a relationship, and its importance, remains integral to the Standards and all outcomes specified are dependent on forming good social worker–client relationships. The consultations were useful in developing the Standards, ...

Internet commerce is growing at a rapid rate. However, consumer participation may not be growing as rapidly as company participation. This study attempts to measure consumer participation and willingness to participate in various types of Internet commerce. Respondents were asked how willing they were to participate in various types of transactions using Internet commerce. This initial research indicated unwillingness on the part of most respondents to participate in Internet commerce. In addition, demographic variables were considered in an attempt to determine why the rate of participation in Internet commerce is not higher. Additional research is needed to determine why consumers are hesitant to become involved in financial transactions and whether this attitude is changing or static.

Both intensified competition and greater consumer participation in the choice process for healthcare has increased the importance of advertising for health care providers and seriously challenged many of the preconceptions regarding advertising. This study investigates the effectiveness of advertising under conditions of high and low involvement using the Elaboration Likelihood Model to develop hypotheses that are tested in a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design. The study findings provide insights into the influence of message content and message source on consumers categorized as high or low involvement. It was found that consumers classified as high-involvement are more influenced by a core service-relevant message than those consumers classified as low-involvement. Moreover, a non-physician spokesperson was found to have as much or more influence as a physician spokesperson regardless of the consumers' involvement level.

This paper reviews the Commonwealth government’s policy of ‘purposeful reporting to consumers’. I argue that the notion of consumer participation is under-developed. Consumers’ needs will not be fully met by confining consumer representation at the administrative level; that is, in assuming that consumer advocates may speak for other consumers of health care services. The partnership objective at the heart of ‘purposeful reporting’ may be addressed fully only when practitioners and providers recognise the reciprocal expertise of the consumer in defining their own health priorities. This would require a new model of knowledge, of ethics and of the clinical encounter. The problem is not one of information deficit but of contrasting views of knowledge.

Cooperation between the EC and the EFTA countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) should, among other things, enable consumers to participate in and influence standardization. The EC New Approach presupposes the elaboration of standards to interpret or fill out the special safety provisions of various directives. The notion of safe products according to the Product Safety Directive can be supported by drafting relevant safety standards. Swedish experiences in some product fields show that results can be achieved through expert consumer participation. Consumer influence on standardization is a matter of great importance for product safety in the future.

Children with disabilities encounter environmental constraints that limit their active participation in the daily life of our communities. As a result, their daily activity patterns are less varied and more socially isolated than peers without disabilities. Factors, such as restricted physical environments, normative classification of children and the power of health disciplines are cited as contributing to the creation of these disabling environments. Dissatisfaction with the ability of health care to change these factors has led to changes in the recognition of disability rights, the need for consumer participation in life planning and the importance of social policy. One could argue that these modifications, while meaningful, have not successfully solved the problems of disabling environments that limit activity. In this paper were explore the use of the broader social and political framework to alter the limited participation of children with disabilities. In this model, we consider disability primari...

This paper analyzes the sources of conflict between professionals and organizations providing services and consumer-oriented self-help organizations of blind people. It reviews major developments within this profession and the rejection of the resulting professional ideologies by a new social movement. We demonstrate that there is not a unity of interest between agencies and the recipients of rehabilitation efforts. Professional and organizational self-interests are opposed to consumer efforts to redefine the nature of blindness. As consumer political effectiveness continues to grow, the threat to the funding and public legitimacy of existing programs may result in a change in attitudes toward consumer participation and definitions of blindness.

A modular structured preschool intervention system is described. It utilizes professionals as resource staff to train and supervise parent‐consumers in the implementation and evaluation of therapeutic precedures which the parents apply with their own children. Some of the unique aspects of this parent‐child system are explained in terms of addressing traditional and typical problems which have long plagued approaches to mental health service delivery. Such problems include delay in providing service, insufficient professional personpower, and failure to utilize the research literature in developing intervention strategies. Conclusions stress the necessity of improved funding formulae, this system's cost‐benefit value, and the advantage of consumer participation in treatment programming operations.

Despite recent trends away from the traditional medical model of service delivery, there appears to be a continuing reluctance among some rehabilitation professionals to fully enable people with disabilities to co-manage their own rehabilitation programmes. These same professionals may remain unaware that their behaviour discourages their clients from taking greater responsibility for solving problems and achieving goals of living. Contradictions in the beliefs and behaviour of service providers is, at grass roots level, perhaps exemplified by their adherence to formal case-team meetings which exclude service recipients. The need to re-define and alter the format of these conferences is the focus of this paper.

Helping patients achieve independent living status or "maximum independence" is the goal of occupational therapy. Until recently, however, "independence" achieved during treatment programs was frequently lost outside of the health care institution because of restrictive or even hostile environments to which patients moved. Now as a result of cooperative advocacy, disabled persons and professionals, aided by useful legisltation, have developed and implemented new models of services to promote independent living. Central to independent living programs is a philosophy of consumer participation, self-determination and having control over one's life by those who are served. This paper presents a brief history of the independent living movement. It then defines and discusses three models commonly seen and gives examples of the servicess they provide. It concludes with a consideration of the factors that influence the success of the transition of persons moving from medical to independent living settings.

P.L. 93–641, the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974, created a network of Health Systems Agencies and placed an emphasis on consumer participation in planning. However, the formation of health planning boards is by itself no assurance of consumer participation. More than 200 HSAs have now received federal designation, and in many cases consumers have had little real participation in planning. This paper examines major obstacles to effective consumer board participation and explores ways in which they might be overcome. These obstacles are either administrative in nature, relate to disparities in knowledge among board members, or result from a lack of consumer constituency support and organization. It is concluded that, for participation to work, new initiatives are needed to increase the knowledge of consumer board members, increase public involvement in health issues and planning, and increase the number and capacity of health consumer organizations.

There are many hindrances to consumer participation in the planning and management of disability services. Consumer perspectives, preferences and felt-needs are not always taken into account by those providing the necessary services. As one important group involved in social care, social workers are committed to extend the process where consumer needs and perspectives are incorporated in the planning and management of services. The Commonwealth Government's emphasis on consumer participation in the planning and management of disability services, as expressed in the Disability Services Act, 1986, is therefore of interest to them in seeing those ideals realised in services which presently lack them.

Health Systems Agencies (HSAs) were mandated to include representation of the community, broadly conceived. The implicit intention of the law was to include consumers as important and co-equal participants with providers in health planning. This paper is an examination of consumer participation in one ESA. Contrary to expectations derived from the literature, citizens in this HSA exercised independent judgment regarding the major issue to confront them. We conclude his was a function of the following: talents and skills of the consumer members; natural interest in health care policy by consumer board members, sympathetic and supportive provider board members; and the homogenous character of the population in the region served.

Consumers are demanding—and getting—a stronger voice in decisions affecting health care delivery. Greater consumer participation and education should alleviate conflicts with medical practitioners arising from high medical costs, complexity of the health care system, and consumer militancy.