Shared decision making in a semi-secluded chronic psychiatric ward: The reflective lifeworld experiences of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders and nursing staff.

Background: Shared decision making (SDM) enhances recovery-oriented mental healthcare, but literature predominately focuses on doctor-patient collaboration leaving the role of mental health nurses (MHN's) underexposed.

Aim: This study describes the experiences of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder with SDM in a semi-secluded psychiatric facility, and the attitudes toward SDM by MHN's.

Method: A hermeneutic phenomenological design.

The user experiences and clinical outcomes of an online personal health record to support self-management of bipolar disorder: A pretest-posttest pilot study.

Background: Self-management comprises knowledge, behavior, activities and resources providing people with bipolar disorder (BD) control over fluctuating mood and activity-patterns. The 'Self-management and Dialogue in Bipolar Disorder' project entailed the tailoring of an online personal health record (PHR) originally designed for the chronically ill to monitor condition and share information with their clinician to people with BD (PHR-BD). The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, utility and user-experiences of participants with BD, relatives, and healthcare professionals who worked with the PHR-BD.

Attitudes of patients with bipolar disorder toward the Life Chart Methodology: a phenomenological study.

Background: The Dutch guideline for bipolar disorder (BD) recommends the use of the Life Chart Methodology (LCM) to help patients to monitor fluctuating mood patterns. But in practice patients show ambivalent attitudes toward this instrument.

Objective: To describe attitudes and motivations of patients with BD for (non-)using the LCM.