PERSPECTIVES ON HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN NURSING Relatives’ experiences of the Boston Psychiatric Rehabilitation approach: A qualitative study HENRIKA JORMFELDT, Associate Professor 1 , BENGT SVENSSON, Associate Professor 2 , LARS HANSSON, Professor 2 , & PETRA SVEDBERG, Associate Professor 1 1 School of Social and Health Sciences, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden and 2 Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Abstract The Boston Psychiatric Rehabilitation (BPR) approach is individualized and characterized by being based entirely on the individual’s unique needs and preferences in the areas of working, learning, social contacts, and living environment. Relatives of clients in mental health services influence the client’s possibilities for recovery by their everyday relationship. Relatives have, however, traditionally had a subordinated role in the care of their mentally ill family member. The perspective of relatives is an important aspect in the development of new approaches to psychiatric rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was thus to describe and explore relatives’ experiences of the BPR approach. Ten relatives of clients in mental health services taking part in the BPR were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with a qualitative content analysis method to explore relatives’ experiences of the BPR intervention in a county in Sweden. The findings from the interviews could be summarized in the theme ‘‘To meet the clients’ needs’’ consisting of three categories: ‘‘Dependence on staffs’ competence,’’ ‘‘Responsibility for user involvement,’’ and ‘‘The necessity for coordination between authorities and caregivers.’’ The findings suggest that relatives may contribute with important information about clients’ needs related to outcome of care. Relatives’ perspectives may be of importance in future development of BPR. Further research about the relatives’ role in psychiatric rehabilitation is needed as well as studies that compare different kinds of psychiatric rehabilitation from the perspective of relatives. Key words: Mental health services, psychiatric rehabilitation, relatives’ experiences, qualitative content analysis (Accepted: 30 October 2013; Published: 8 April 2014) The Boston Psychiatric Rehabilitation (BPR) ap- proach (sometimes called ChooseGetKeep Model, CGK) is based on the standards of psychiatric rehabilitation developed by Anthony, Howell, and Danley (1983) at Boston University. The approach has been described as being neither a particular technique nor an intervention but a service within the mental health system (Farkas & Antony, 2010), which aims to promote recovery and the achievement of a meaningful life, rather than simply supporting adaptation to or survival in the community. The BPR is person-centred and characterized by being based completely on the individual’s unique needs and pre- ferences (Rogers, Anthony, & Farkas, 2006) in the areas of working, learning, social contacts, and living environment (Anthony, 1992). The BPR is a model for psychiatric rehabilitation that has been developed with the aim of improving the quality of life of persons with severe mental illness through offering extensive person-centred support to strengthen the persons’ ability to take responsibility for his or her life and thereby improve quality of life (Farkas & Antony, 2010). It has been maintained that the perspective of the client and the perspective of the relatives regard- ing quality of care sometimes represent a conflict of interest (Schro ¨der, Wilde, & Ahlstro ¨m, 2007). It is thus of importance to gain knowledge of how this extensive person-centred approach is experienced by the service users’ relatives, who may sometimes have different perspectives regarding how the clients’ primary needs are best fulfilled. The cornerstone of the BPR is, in line with the perspective of service users’, a commitment to a strong partnership between the provider and the (page number not for citation purpose) Correspondence: H. Jormfeldt, School of Social and Health Sciences, Halmstad University, SE*301 18, Halmstad, Sweden. E-mail: henrika.jormfeldt@hh.se International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being æ #2014 H. Jormfeldt et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. 1 Citation: Int J Qualitative Stud Health Well-being 2014, 9: 22918 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v9.22918