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Service user carries a stigma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

A. K. Al-Sheikhli
A. K. Al-Sheikhli*
Affiliation:
Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team, St Leonards-on-Sea, email: aalsheikhli@aol.com
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The Psychiatrist , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , March 2010 , pp. 117
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2010

The term service user is one I employ reluctantly. In my opinion it carries a stigma and leads to denial of the patients' rights to have effective treatment. I think using the term is part of the movement to ‘socialise’ psychiatry and we need to insist that psychiatric illnesses are similar to any other illnesses, and those who suffer from them are patients. Do cardiologists refer to patients with myocardial infarctions as service users?

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