Social network interactions among mentally ill persons in community housing: research issues and agenda

Abstract

This paper discusses social network interactions among individuals who have been hospitalized with mental illness and who currently reside in different types of community housing programmes. First, a conceptualisation of social networks that focuses on network interactions, both supportive and non-supportive, between network interactions may be more important influences on successful or unsuccessful adaptation of current and former psychiatric patients to community life than the structural dimensions of social networks more commonly analysed in the literature. The design of a current longitudinal study of social network interactions is presented. The results of two pilot studies that examine social network interactions is presented. The results of two pilot studies that examine social network interactions with data from several community housing programmes in southern Ontario, Canada are reviewed and an agenda is stated for further data collection and analysis.