Service user involvement in mental health assessment: comparing people's experiences of mental health triage assessments with theoretical perspectives on user involvement.

Separately, both user involvement and assessment are conceptually poorly defined by practitioners. Not surprisingly, reviews suggest that involvement in assessment is poorly researched, understood and largely achieved only at low levels. In this study fourteen service users and five assessors were interviewed, and a conceptual framework developed using grounded theory methods for data gathering and analysis. Two key dimensions of the experience emerged for involvement; the nature of the relationship with the assessor; and the construction of assessment as a process of dialogue. Recommendations for practice include: the use of an introductory letter to orientate service users to the assessment process; reconstructing the assessment as a series of encounters rather than as a single event; the provision of a written formulation to service users and; the introduction of systems to ensure that staff maintain their capacity for emotional reactivity to people presenting for this initial contact with mental health services.