Challenges and Opportunities of Being a Prosumer Researcher Exploring Women's Experience of Postpartum Emotional Distress (PPED): Been There, Done That?

Résumé

INTRODUCTION: There is increasing recognition of the value of lived experience in mental health research and clinical practice; however, its integration remains limited within academic literature, particularly regarding the role and experiences of prosumer researchers. Existing scholarship provides insufficient insight into how researchers who combine professional and lived experience navigate methodological, ethical, and epistemological complexities.AIM: This paper explores how prosumer researchers can meaningfully integrate lived experience to enhance understanding of mental health phenomena while maintaining methodological rigor.METHOD: Using a reflective analytic approach, the paper explores the opportunities and challenges encountered by prosumer researchers, including managing dual roles, ensuring reflexivity, and achieving alignment between research methodology and methods.RESULTS: The findings highlight the critical importance of reflexivity in lived-experience research to ensure transparency, credibility, and rigour. The paper argues that carefully selected and reflexively applied methodologies can support the ethical and effective incorporation of lived experience.IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Researchers and practitioners should adopt methodological approaches that accommodate reflexivity and lived experience, thereby enriching mental health research and informing more sensitive, practical, and effective interventions.