Inaugural lecture: Shared decision-making as the basis for good mental health care

Shared decision-making is of great value in aligning care with patient preferences and values. Also in mental health care this "collaborative decision-making" is an essential ingredient of often longer-term therapeutic treatment relationships with patients and their loved ones. Particularly in the care of people with severe mental illness, this is an extra big task, but there are many gains to be made here. This is what psychiatrist and professor Koen Grootens argues in his inaugural lecture "Deciding together under high pressure," on May 26 at Tilburg University. Continuity and quality of care. In his lecture, Koen Grootens explains why the implementation of joint decision-making in the care of people with severe mental illness is so complex and makes recommendations to make the specialized mental health care 'as shared as possible'. For example, by more emphasis on continuity and quality of long-term treatment relationships with patients and their loved ones in a stable mental health care setting.