Attitudes towards health among patients and staff in mental health services: a comparison of ratings of importance of different items of health

Abstract

In mental health services, the concept of health is often perceived, from a biomedical perspective, as the absence of disease, involving several negative consequences together with a lack of systematic health-promoting activities. The subjective experiences of health among patients in mental health services are crucial to reinforce the experience of health throughout different phases of life. Positive dimensions of health include interaction between the individual and the environment, subjective experience of individual power as well as possibilities to influence important aspects of the life situation. The aim of the study was to describe and compare attitudes to health among patients and staff in mental health services in terms of the importance of health as measured by the attitude version of the Health Questionnaire. A cross-sectional study including a randomly selected sample of 141 outpatients in contact with the mental health services and 140 mental health staff was performed. Patients and staff share most attitudes towards health, which indicates that health is a concept that applies to human beings irrespective of mental disease in the context of mental health services. The possibility to be able to define, measure, and compare positive dimensions of health may be important in the attempts to divert the focus towards one that promotes health and resources in mental health services and away from one on illness and deficits.