Open Dialogue Around the World – Implementation, Outcomes, Experiences, and Perspectives

About this Research Topic

Background

Open Dialogue (OD) is a low hierarchical, mental health service model that originated in Finland in the 1980s, following a change on two different levels: First, a culture of dialogical communication between staff, users, and caregivers was established. Secondly, community-based, multi-disciplinary teams were organized to offer primarily outpatient services. Immediate help in crisis, continuity of support by the same team, a low medication and primarily psychotherapeutically oriented approach are key principles of OD that have been further elaborated upon overtime during the past decades.

OD promotes mutual trust and open exchange between the involved stakeholders. It is based on a mental health care epistemology that prioritizes human values, everyday relationships, and context-bound understandings over symptoms and clinical diagnostics. Transparency is of high value: All information is shared, and all voices are to be heard, thereby recognizing diversity and reflecting power differentials during the whole process of support.

OD is now practiced in various regions around the globe, i.e. in several countries in Europe as well as in Australia, Japan, Latin America and the USA. Studies in Western Lappland demonstrated various outcomes, such as reducing the prevalence and incidence of so-called chronic mental illness, need for disability benefits and intake of neuroleptic medication while increasing functional remission and taking up work on the first labour market.

However, these outcomes primarily originate in studies that have investigated the OD in countries of its origin leading to the question of whether they are transferrable to other healthcare contexts. This question is crucial since OD, varies internationally in its adaption to local health care systems and contingencies instead of representing a clearly demarcated intervention.

This Research Topic is interested in gaining an international perspective on OD. It will assemble papers and contributions that report and comment on local OD practices, describe and analyze their outcomes and impact, and inform future directions worldwide. Manuscripts that are (co-)authored by peers, survivors, and user researchers are especially welcomed.

All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed. We are interested in:
- Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method original research on OD, reporting on empirical research, such as the results of intervention studies, clinical or pilot trials;
- Systematic reviews or mini-reviews that summarize the results of empirical studies on OD;
- Case reports that highlight an unexpected situation or outcome of an OD course of support;
- Policy and practice reviews on local regulations and guidelines that are relevant for OD;
- Hypotheses papers that present novel arguments, interpretations or theoretical models in relation to OD;
- Perspective articles that present a viewpoint on a specific area of investigation in relation to OD;
- Conceptual analysis articles that explore the concepts and issues behind OD;
- Papers on training and instructions that describe innovative curricula, courses and teaching formats concerning OD;
- Data report, presenting a description or a research dataset on OD;
- Brief research report that presents original research and/ or preliminary findings on OD with fewer detail;
- Commentary and opinion papers that provide critical comments or contribute viewpoints on recent research findings.

Keywords: Open Dialogue around the world – implementation, outcomes, experiences, and perspectives

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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