Exploring the Meaning of Collaboration in Rural Mental Healthcare Delivery From the Perspective of Mental Health Clinicians and Informal Carers of People Living With a Mental Health Illness—A Qualitative Study

Mental health policies and practice guidelines emphasise the importance of collaboration with informal carers of people with mental illness, but this does not routinely occur in practice. Understanding the perspective of different parties regarding collaboration is a step towards ensuring an alignment between policy and routine clinical practice. This study explored the meaning of collaboration from the perspectives of informal carers and mental health clinicians in a rural Australian mental health service. This qualitative descriptive study used purposive sampling to recruit informal carers (n = 7) and mental health clinicians (n = 14) from an acute mental health inpatient facility. Data was generated from focus groups and semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Three overarching themes were identified: three-way partnership, purposeful exchange and communication is everything. Clinician and informal carer participants described collaboration as a respectful partnership that necessarily involves the consumer, their carers and clinicians. The purpose of the partnership was identified as providing holistic care to the consumer, which essentially includes support for their carer. Open and clear communication, as well as information sharing, were identified as important to collaboration. However, the experiences of informal carers did not reflect this description of collaboration. Adequate support for informal carers, recognition of their expertise and open and consistent communication are key to a collaborative process that delivers better outcomes for consumers and their carers. Proactive clinician training and a practical guide to inform the delivery of routine informal carer engagement in mental health services are required to achieve an effective three-way collaboration.