This page offers ideas and tools to help you involve people who have experience of mental illness in self-managing and planning their own physical health and wellbeing.
Mental health experiences, such as low mood, low self-esteem and symptoms of psychosis, can make it difficult for people to look after their physical health. Empowering service users to self-manage their physical health is vital. Often service users are not provided with the information and guidance they need to manage their physical health. Community settings are essential in providing advice, support and activities to improve self-management.
Suggested solutions
- Deliver interventions to support self-management of physical health and wellbeing that emphasise the positive roles peer support (accessed through service user-led and voluntary organisations) and supportive family and friends can play.
- Support prescribing guidelines and side-effect management with alternative strategies, such as social prescribing, peer and community support.
- Ensure informed and shared decision making and the involvement of family and unpaid carers in care planning.
Tools to help you
- Wellbeing & Physical Health. Rethink have produced some guidance for patients on looking after their wellbeing and physical health.
- Mental health problems: self-care resource. Self-care tips for people living with a mental health condition, produced by Mind.
- Physical activity, sport and exercise resource. Overview of the health benefits of being physically active, produced by Mind.
- Edinburgh Community Voices: Improving Physical Health for People with Lived Experience of Mental Health Issues Survey Results March 2017. Edinburgh Community Voices carried out a survey to hear from people who have lived experience of mental health issues about what’s important to them when it comes to improving their physical health.
Tagged: serious mental illness (SMI), stolen years
