Friday, 14 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Consumer-Driven Services for Persons with Severe Mental Illness

Self-Help Services: Effects Upon Satisfaction With Professional Mental Health Services

Purpose: Mental health self-help services are cost-effective and provide positive outcomes for their users. Further, they are functioning as an alternative mental health system, providing services that the professional sector cannot provide, due to constraints imposed by managed care and other budgetary dilemmas. Given this dual system, there have been calls for increased collaboration between self-help and professional treatment modalities. However, for this collaboration to happen, self-help would have to be seen as enhancing, rather than detracting from, professional services. Thus, this study hypothesizes that self-help use might promote satisfaction with professional services. Methods: This study utilized a cross-sectional survey design to examine differences between self-help users and non-users on satisfaction with formal services. The sample consists of 311 consumers of community-based mental health services in one midwestern state; approximately half of the sample (n=151) used self-help services. Bivariate associations between self-help use and satisfaction with professional services were explored via t-tests and Chi-square tests. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the extent to which self-help use was a factor in the model that best predicted variance in the overall rating of consumer satisfaction with services. Results: The study hypothesis was conditionally confirmed. While there were no significant differences between mean service satisfaction scores of self-help users and non-users, use of self-help was found to be associated with greater service satisfaction in the multiple regression model. Implications for Policy and Practice: Rather than deterring users from traditional services, this study provides support for the idea that self-help encourages appropriate use of professional mental health. These findings build support for the growing notion that self-help and traditional mental health services can function complementary, rather than competitively. Further, they indicate that mental health social workers need to be aware of self-help services in order to refer clients when appropriate.

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