Consumer perspectives on information and other inputs to decision-making: implications for evidence-based practice.

This study is an exploration of mental health consumers' perspectives on information, including scientific information, and on other inputs to decision-making. Four focus groups were held with severely mentally ill consumers at two sites in the summer of 2005. Consumers varied in age, race and diagnosis. Participant responses were coded by theme and into subthematic categories. Implications for evidence-based decision-making included that: consumers desire and seek information about their illnesses and the mental health system; consumers identify scientific studies as information with special and welcome properties; and consumers also identify other influences on their decision-making, most of which fall under the "recovery" rubric.