'We're Still in There'--Consumer Voices on Mental Health Inpatient Care: Social Work Research Highlighting Lessons for Recovery Practice.

This paper reports on research undertaken in an acute inpatient mental health facility in rural Australia to explore the lived experience of inpatient care. Conceptualised within a recovery framework that emphasises the biopsychosocial approach acknowledging consumers' lived experiences alongside clinical perspectives, this study contributes to addressing a gap in the literature about what consumers experience as being most important to their recovery during an episode of inpatient care. Traditionally, mental health service delivery has been weighted towards clinical recovery with a biomedical approach dominating. This is especially so in an inpatient setting. In this qualitative study, the personal and social components of recovery emerge as critical factors for consumers even in an acute phase of care indicating a need to redress the imbalance. Eight in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with consumers during their stay in the inpatient facility. Drawing on a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis and the use of NVivo, three themes emerged: the importance of listening, facilitating peer support and the inclusion of families. All three themes resonate with core social work practice suggesting social workers have a critical role to play in the transformation of mental health services to reflect the recovery paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]