Co-production and mental health service provision: a scoping review

Objectives: Co-production is a relatively new concept with a history spanning back just four decades. However, it is only in the past ten years that it has been applied to mental health. It is now observed as a recovery principle whose presence is necessary for recovery-orientated services to become a reality. Despite this, today, there is still much confusion as per the philosophical, empirical and practical basis within mental health service provision, with key areas lacking theoretical clarity, for example, its definition within the mental health domain along with its ontological and epistemological stance on how the social world should be viewed and, more importantly, interpreted. As such, this paper will examine the concept of co-production within mental health service provision.

Methods: A scoping review that was compliant with the PRISMA amendments for scoping reviews and followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework was conducted. The databases CINAHL, Cochrane Online Library, Jstor, Ovid SP, PsycINFO, PsycTESTS, PubMed, RCNi, Science Direct, Web of Science and Wiley Online Library were used to search the peer-reviewed literature. This was supported by a comprehensive search of repositories for grey literature on co-production.

Results: Ten articles were eligible for inclusion in the study. Through the use of a summative content analysis approach, the results were constructed in order to form a narrative. This narrative would reflect the key aspects of each study as they pertained to one or more of the five headings created as part of phase four of Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework. These headings include Co-Production Definition Used, Stated Advantages of Co-Production, Stated Disadvantages of Co-Production, Co-Production Types/Models and Implementing Co-Production.

Conclusion: The results of this review has added empirically to the literature base on co-production. The study highlights the lack of renumeration for those working in co-production activity that needs to be addressed. Most striking is the formal recognition, for the first time, of a philosophical war between co-production and that of evidence-based practice itself. This is an interesting but important development that requires further study in order to ensure that co-production as a recovery principle can be further enhanced and sustained into the future.