Community/Crisis Cafés: Perspectives of Service Users and Carers Scoping Review

Community/Crisis Cafés offer an alternative, out-of-hours mental health support by providing a safe, peer/clinician-supported environment for individuals in crisis. These cafés utilise peer support models that draw on personal experience, fostering connections and aiding in crisis management. Despite the growing global implementation of these cafés, limited research exists on how service users and carers experience and benefit from them. This study aims to explore the perspectives of service users and carers on accessing and utilising support through community/crisis cafés both nationally and internationally. A scoping review was guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and included keyword searches of eight databases (Academic Search Complete, APA PsychInfo, CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science), combined with grey literature searches of LENSUS, Health Service Executive, WHO Global Index, NHS, and Open Grey. Backward and forward chaining of references was also completed to ensure all literature was sourced. Papers were limited to 2010–2023 and in English. Covidence was used for the screening process, ten papers met the review criteria and are reported as per the PRISMA-ScR checklist and PRISMA flow diagram. The findings of ten papers on service users and carers experiences indicate that Community/Crisis Cafés can have a positive impact on mental health management, alleviate social isolation, and reduce emergency department use. However, challenges such as consistency in service delivery and accessibility were noted. Further research and ongoing evaluation are necessary to fully understand the efficacy and limitations of this alternative co-produced, community mental health service delivery model.