Consumer Participation in Personalized Psychiatry
Personalized psychiatry represents a paradigm shift that is long overdue. It is characterized by shifting screening, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention practices away from a “one size fits all” approach to one tailored to patients’ unique clinical, social, digital, and biological (e.g., genetic and epigenetic) profiles to enhance outcomes. This shift from traditional approaches to more tailored, personalized practices not only opens up an opportunity for, but also emphasizes the need for consumer participation in the design of these practices. This participation could be through research, policy, ethics discussions, clinical care, or novel solution development. This chapter outlines the rationale for consumer participation in personalized psychiatry and provides insights and examples of ways in which to enhance this participation. The outcome is novel solution development that appropriately focuses on end-user needs by incorporating consumer contributions to both product design as well as testing. Validation of new technologies prior to their implementation can be difficult through current research practices; however, consumers can help expand research practices by identifying the highest-priority questions to answer, advocating for necessary resources and influencing the design of models for joint clinical decision-making. As both research subjects and the ultimate beneficiaries or users of new technologies, consumers also have a critical perspective on ethical issues unique to personalized psychiatry—one that absolutely needs to be considered as this field continues to grow. The authors conclude that there is no substitute for the consumer voice.