Satisfaction with Mental Health Treatment in a Randomized Trial of Consumer Case Management

It was hypothesized that the clients assigned to a consumer team of case managers, because they share similar life experiences interacting with the mental health system, would have greater satisfaction with mental health treatment than clients assigned to a team of nonconsumer case managers. Ninety-one clients with serious and persistent mental illness randomly assigned to consumer and nonconsumer case management teams were interviewed after 1 year of service. While clients served by a consumer team of case managers were less satisfied with mental health treatment, personal characteristics of individual case managers were more important in explaining differences in satisfaction with treatment than whether the client was served by the consumer or nonconsumer team.