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Including the voices and knowledge of service users is essential for developing recovery-oriented and evidence-based mental health services. Recent studies have however, suggested that challenges remain to the legitimization of user knowledge in practice. To further explore such challenges, a co-production study was conducted by a team of researchers and representatives from user organizations in Sweden. The aim of the study was to explore the barriers and facilitators to the legitimacy of user knowledge, as a central factor in sustainably implementing user influence in mental health practice. A series of workshops, with representatives of mental health services and user organizations were conducted by the research team to explore these issues. The analysis built on the theoretical framework of epistemic injustice, and the underlying aspects, testimonial, hermeneutic and participation-based injustice, were utilized as a framework for a deductive analysis. Results suggest that this is a useful model for exploring the complex dynamics related to the legitimacy of user knowledge in mental health systems. The analysis suggests that the legitimacy of user knowledge is related to the representativeness of the knowledge base, the systematic formulation of this knowledge in applicable methods, access to resources and positions within the mental health system and participation in the process of integrating this knowledge-base in mental health contexts. Legitimizing user knowledge in practice additionally challenges mental health systems to support readiness for change in working environments and to address the power and role issues that these changes involve.

PURPOSE: To examine how rural municipalities develop services to people with serious mental illness in relation to evidence-based practice and national guidelines. Additional sources of knowledge and strategies used by the municipalities in relation to their development needs were explored as well. METHOD: Qualitative multiple-case approach, with 43 deep-interviews involving 84 informants representing selected social psychiatric services from 11 sites. RESULTS: National guidelines and evidence-based practices have a limited impact on how rural municipalities develop services to the target group. The municipalities favor other sources of knowledge, including regional networks, pragmatic problem-solving approaches and community-based knowledge. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Most of the informants expressed a need for more systematic and evidence-based knowledge in order to meet their clients’ needs. A major challenge to improve the utilization of these methods, is to make adaptions to match the rural municipalities’ needs and actual resources without risking the quality of these evidence-based services.

The Great Salt Lake is drying up and so is Lake Urmia in Iran. Both are at historical lows. USU professors are working with professors at Iranian universities to understand what is happening and what can be done.

Even though it has been demonstrated that peer support contributes to positive outcomes for service users, organizational implementation issues remain. The aim of the current study was to examine an implementation of peer support from the perspective of managers in order to develop knowledge of factors influencing sustainability of this initiative. Eighteen managers were interviewed in connection with the introduction of peer support in sixteen mental health settings. Interviews were analyzed utilizing inductive and deductive approaches. The results suggested that managers were predominantly positive in their evaluation of peer support as a recovery-oriented addition to their services, but noted developmental issues regarding role, professional identity, supervision and financing in relation to other traditional personnel. The involvement of the user movement, especially with regard to training and supervision helped prepare staff and support peer workers, yet there was some apprehension attached to the critical scrutiny that this `outsider’ perspective might imply. The results confirm previously noted uncertainties regarding peer support as an integrated component of mental health systems and illuminate a number of culturally conditioned challenges that may hamper peer support from being implemented with the same approach as other interventions. In response, the present study suggests a number of focus areas that should be attended to in future implementation efforts, including issues related to staff roles, power dynamics, connection to the user movement and reconsideration of the value of experience-based knowledge. In the Swedish context, a government level commitment was identified as critical to ensure stable funding.