Person-Centered Mental Healthcare and the Role of Peer Workers

This article discusses the importance of person-centered mental healthcare and the role of peer workers in providing effective care to patients. It also highlights the importance of effective communication skills for nurses working with peer support.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTHCARE
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
Introduction:
“Person centeredness” can be defined as the holistic approach where the healthcare
professionals need to harbor an attitude of respect towards the patient who is suffering from the
mental health disorder. The professionals need to consider the unique experience and needs of
the patients suffering from mental health disorders and accordingly develop an intervention that
meets their requirements (Slade et al. 2014). Healthcare professionals need to exhibit
collaborative working style where they would be including patients in decision making regarding
their own health in the teamwork. The professionals need to establish good rapport and work
with all the experts in the healthcare team in a coordinated manner so that the best care can be
provided to the patients. It is very important for ensuring patient safety, care quality and patient
satisfaction. The assignment will show how nursing professionals can team with peer workers
and patients and work in a coordinated manner to ensure the best healthcare outcomes.
Part (i)
The researchers are of the opinion that service providers can respect the contribution that
the service users can make to their own health, such as their values, goals; past experiences the
knowledge of their own health needs and thereby develop therapeutic bonds with them. In very
simple words, person-centered care provides the autonomy and dignity of the service users
enabling them to become the centre focus of the care plans and make their own decisions by
themselves (Dixon et al. 2016). Person-centered mental health care thereby means that the
consumers will be having control over their services that would include amount, duration as well
as scope within the services and even the choice of the providers. This form of mental health care

2
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
is extremely respectful and responsive to the cultural, linguistic as well as other social and
environmental needs of the individuals.
Recent researchers are of the opinion that mental health peer workers are professionals
who can contribute to the larger extent for the mental health development for the patients who
come for service. Organizations are seen to employ mental health peer workers based on their
personal lived experiences of the mental disorder as well as recovery or their experiences for
supporting the family as well as friends who had mental health disorders (Chinman et al. 2014).
This lived experience is an essential qualification for this profession in addition to the different
skills and experiences that are important for the particular roles that they are seen to undertake in
the mental health units.
Peer workers are able to establish effective bonds with the patients based on therapeutic
communication skills. One of the most important advantages of being peer workers is that they
can easily understand the experiences of the mental health patients and can understand their
viewpoints. As they have also gone through several mental disorder experiences, they can
currently understand what the patients feel and what they expect from the healthcare system.
Therefore, they can successfully connect with the service users (Lara et al. 2016). Service user,
on the other hand, finds them to be comfortable in working with them as they feel that the peer
workers can correctly understand their feelings and emotionally link with them. Moreover, the
peer workers are seen to ensure empathy and compassion in their care towards the patients and
this aspect makes service users feel that they have understood their issues and can help them
overcome the issues (Stanhope et al. 2015). Such trust helps patients in gaining positive health
outcome and they become hopeful about their recovery.

3
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
Peer workers are mainly seen to harbor experiences of having significant mental health
challenges that would have been cured by taking help from the secondary mental health services
themselves. Therefore, these professionals can use these personal experiences for helping others
in the recovery journey (Keift et al., 2014). A close analysis of their job roles shows that they
often act as the natural communication link and thereby acts as mediators to overcome the
clinical barriers and understand the problems of the service users. They help in ensuring person-
centered care by challenging the existing beliefs about the expectations and attitudes towards
people facing significant health challenges (Corrigan et al. 2014). This is mainly achieved by
them by modeling innovative healthcare models and showing help and support to the service
users as equal and showing them that they have the power to "recovery".
The peer workers are also seen to be acting as effective guides in developing health
literacy among the mental health patients. They are seen to empower the service users in making
correct decisions regarding their health. They guide the service users by helping them to
understand the complex health and social care system (Stevenson et al. 2015). They are seen to
support the service users throughout the treatment towards “recovery” as well as sharing
experiences of “having been there”. They are often considered as valuable team members in the
collaborative teams in mental healthcare units as the teams believe that peer-workers have a
vision of recovery and their positive recovery language often helps in providing a role model to
the team.
It is important to discuss how the service users are benefitted from the contribution of the
peer-workers in the mental healthcare units. The peer workers help in holding the hope for a
person receiving services and believe in their potential and strengths in their recovery. Such
belief and expectation of the peer workers make the clients develop willpower in them, making

4
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
them believe that they can overcome the barriers. They listen non-judgmentally to the service
users and empathize with them (Sjogren et al. 2015). They encourage people to make their own
choices helping them to feel that they can control their lives. Peer workers can provide all the
suggestions to the patients for identifying their hopes, dreams and aspirations and enabling them
to access voluntary and support groups. They also help in access to community activities. They
help patients in making preparations and accompany them to different appointment sessions.
They also help the service users in exploring educational, leisure as well as employment and
voluntary opportunities and hence help in providing person-centered care.
Part (ii):
As a mental healthcare nurse, I closely work with the treatment team to develop an
individualized plan for giving the patient the total care and the attention; they need to maintain a
productive life. Over the months, I have mastered important skills that had helped me in
managing mental health patients effectively. I have developed excellent observation skills.
Observations skills are important as they help to notice the abnormal signs and symptoms as
well as the behavioral issue of the patients that give us a preliminary idea about the mental health
disorder of the patient (Barbosa et al. 2015). Another important ability that I also possess is
staying calm in different difficult situations. Self-regulation skills are important for every
healthcare professional as it helps them to remain patient, manage their emotions, undertake
critical thinking procedures and take the correct decisions without getting frustrated and
disappointed (Pearson et al. 2015). Mental healthcare services are extremely energy draining and
require nurses to have the ability of self-regulation to control and handle emotions effectively
and maintain professionalism in a workplace (Reynolds et al. 2015). I have these capabilities and
hence, I am being able to provide effective care to the patients.

5
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
One of the skills that I lack and are affecting my quality service to the patients are my
improper communication skills. Effective communication skills are important for developing
bonds with patients in mental healthcare services. This is extremely important to make the
patient feel that their dignity and autonomy are respected and it helps in understanding the
expectations and needs of the patients. I am an inpatient listener and quite introvert in nature s
well. I cannot easily communicate with patients and with other members of the team. These
aspects disrupt the relationship building with the patient. For this reason, trust is not developed
and hence patients with mental health conditions cannot reveal their concerns. They think that
they would be judged. They do not feel comfortable and this affects person-centered care.
Similarly, while working with the peer support members, I am not being able to communicate
effectively. My impatient listening skills are disrupting in listening to the concerns and
expectations of the per support workers entirely. Therefore, I am not being able to visualize their
viewpoint and the ways they plan to provide effective care to the patients. Often, due to this
reason, the teamwork gets affected and the care that the patients receive is of poor quality
(Corrigan et al. 2014). Moreover, I am quite introvert in nature and therefore, I cannot engage in
effective feedback sharing with the peer workers. Researchers are of the opinion that feedback
sharing is important in showing interests in the task, help in the development of more innovative
planning, better negotiation, respecting the speakers and revealing one's own concerns (Barbosa
et al. 2015). It also helps in maintaining clarity in the activities and help in meeting the goals of
the team effectively. It helps in better team bonding based on mutual trust and respect (Slade et
al. 2014). Due to my poor feedback sharing skills, my relationship with the peer workers might
get affected. This would ultimately affect the person-centered care that patients in mental

6
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
healthcare system deserve. Hence, I need to join workshops and work on my communication
skills to overcome the barriers.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that peer workers are an important part of
the professional healthcare team who has a considerable amount of contribution in ensuring
person-centered care to mental health patients. Persons who have lived experiences of mental
healthcare disorders always direct peer recovery support services. They have gone through or are
going through the recovery processes. They are one of the best members who can ensure
effective care to the patients. This is mainly because they can understand the viewpoints of the
patients and can develop care models that would be benefiting for them. They guide the patients
in their decision making helping them to understand the interventions that would bring out the
best outcomes on the patient. They respect the autonomy and dignity of the patients allowing
them to take their own decisions and be at the centre of development of the care plans. These
aspects empower the patients helping them to overcome anxiousness, take responsibility for their
own health, and be compliant with the interventions. Effective communication skills are very
important for the nurses who work with peer support. Active listening skills and proper feedback
exchange skills would be helpful for the nurse to engage in effective teamwork with peer
workers and hence ensure the best outcome for the health of patients.

7
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
References:
Barbosa, A., Sousa, L., Nolan, M., & Figueiredo, D. 2015. “Effects of person-centered care
approaches to dementia care on staff: a systematic review”. American Journal of
Alzheimer's Disease & Other Dementias®, vol 30 no.(8), pp: 713-722.
Chinman, M., George, P., Dougherty, R. H., Daniels, A. S., Ghose, S. S., Swift, A., & Delphin-
Rittmon, M. E. 2014. “Peer support services for individuals with serious mental illnesses:
assessing the evidence”. Psychiatric Services,vol: 65 no.(4), pp
:429-441.
Corrigan, P. W., Pickett, S., Batia, K., & Michaels, P. J. 2014. “Peer navigators and integrated
care to address ethnic health disparities of people with serious mental illness”. Social
work in public health, vol 29 no (6), pp 581-593.
Dixon, L. B., Holoshitz, Y., & Nossel, I. 2016. “Treatment engagement of individuals
experiencing mental illness: review and update”. World Psychiatry, vol: 15 no.(1), pp 13-
20.
Kieft, R. A., de Brouwer, B. B., Francke, A. L., & Delnoij, D. M. 2014. “How nurses and their
work environment affect patient experiences of the quality of care: a qualitative
study”. BMC health services research, vol:14 no:(1), pp:249.
Lara-Cabrera, M. L., Salvesen, Ø., Nesset, M. B., De las Cuevas, C., Iversen, V. C., & Gråwe, R.
W. 2016. “The effect of a brief educational programme added to mental health treatment
to improve patient activation: a randomized controlled trial in community mental health
centres”. Patient education and counseling, vol: 99 no. (5), pp: 760-768.

8
MENTAL HEALTHCARE
Pearson, M., Brand, S. L., Quinn, C., Shaw, J., Maguire, M., Michie, S., ... & Byng, R. 2015.
“Using realist review to inform intervention development: methodological illustration
and conceptual platform for collaborative care in offender mental
health”. Implementation Science, vol: 10 np.(1), pp: 134.
Reynolds, J., Griffiths, K. M., Cunningham, J. A., Bennett, K., & Bennett, A. 2015. “Clinical
practice models for the use of e-mental health resources in primary health care by health
professionals and peer workers: a conceptual framework”. JMIR mental health, vol:2 no.
(1).
Sjögren, K., Lindkvist, M., Sandman, P. O., Zingmark, K., & Edvardsson, D. 2015. “To what
extent is the work environment of staff related to person‐centred care? A cross‐sectional
study of residential aged care”. Journal of clinical nursing, vol: 24 no. (9-10), pp: 1310-
1319.
Slade, M., Amering, M., Farkas, M., Hamilton, B., O'Hagan, M., Panther, G., ... & Whitley, R.
2014. “Uses and abuses of recovery: implementing recovery‐oriented practices in mental
health systems”. World Psychiatry, vol:13 no. (1), pp: 12-20.
Stanhope, V., Tondora, J., Davidson, L., Choy-Brown, M., & Marcus, S. C. 2015. “Person-
centered care planning and service engagement: a study protocol for a randomized
controlled trial”. Trials, vol: 16 no.(1), pp: 180.
Stevenson, K. N., Jack, S. M., O’Mara, L., & LeGris, J. 2015. “Registered nurses’ experiences of
patient violence on acute care psychiatric inpatient units: an interpretive descriptive
study”. BMC nursing, vol: 14 no.(1), pp: 35.

9
MENTAL HEALTHCARE