The primary objective of this project is to gain knowledge on good user pathways as a basis to improve services to long-term mental health service users by identifying factors that either facilitates or hinder continuity of care. The work will be organized in three work packages (WPs). The main goal of WP1 is to identify what characterises mental health service users' pathways in the course of 12 or 18 months. In WP2 we will identify the users' perceptions of continuity of care related to their own pathway, and do a cross-cultural comparison between Norwegian and UK data. In WP3 we will identify structural mechanisms for continuity of care in the municipal mental health services.
Data will be drawn from several sources. WP1 and WP2 will analyse data from a mapping of service use, unmet needs and continuity of care in the population of patients receiving treatment within the specialist mental health services (collected in an ongoing SINTEF-project). WP1 and WP2 will also do a follow-up survey 6 months later among day- and outpatients. WP3 will utilize data from several sources, including cross-sectional surveys and registers.
The knowledge generated by this project will facilitate good user pathways characterised by continuity of care, and increase the chances that users receive the right treatment in the right place at the right time.