Exploring Mental Health Service Users' Experiences of Social Inclusion in their Community Occupations

Abstract

Introduction: Social inclusion is a recent policy driver, which aims to develop fair access to opportunity for marginalised groups: a major goal in keeping with the values of occupational therapists. Evaluation of progress towards social inclusion includes listening to individuals' experiences of inclusion or exclusion in their local communities. This research aimed to explore the experiences of social inclusion for mental health service users when engaged in everyday community occupations and to identify possible factors that influenced the service user experience. Method: Eight in-depth interviews with mental health service users were carried out, using interpretative phenomenological analysis to recount participants' life world perspectives. Findings: The findings revealed three themes: the outside experience, which described features of the social, physical and economic environment that influenced inclusion; the internal disability, which described features within participants themselves that influenced inclusion; and an active lifestyle, which described how features of occupation influenced inclusion. Feelings of inclusion or exclusion were predominantly linked to the response received from others, which was at times stigmatising and hostile. Conclusion: Given the negative impact of the reactions of society, occupational therapists need to prioritise working with local communities to facilitate their capacity to support social inclusion, as well as focusing on individual skill acquisition.