A day in the life of people with severe mental illness living in supported housing

BMC Psychiatry

Table 1 Example from a section of a diary and narrative format

When activity was performed	What type of activity	With whom it was performed	Where the activity took place	Personal reflection on the activity
One hourly intervals	What did you do?	Was there anyone else around at the time?	Where were you at the time?	How did you experience the activity?
	Record everything that you did and try to remember and note down for how long the activities were performed.	Was there anyone else around at the time?	Name the place and location.	How did you experience the activity?
		Record whether you were with someone or not.	Name the place and location.	Record your personal reflections and comments
*Two selected rows from a diary:*
1 pm – 2 pm	Accompanied a friend to buy a stereo	A friend	In town	Could not find anything
2 pm - 3 pm	Ate	alone	At McDonalds	Relaxed, better than sitting alone in my room.
2 pm - 3 pm	Drank cider	alone	Outside X (a pub)	Relaxed, better than sitting alone in my room.

An example of the amount of information a diary could contain transferred to narrative format (the same participant as above)
At midnight, I watched TV. Did not go to bed until two o’clock in the morning. I had trouble falling asleep. I woke up at 11 am feeling rested. Checked the email on the computer. Ate nothing, I find it hard to eat in the morning. At 1 pm, I went into town with a friend, he was going to buy a stereo, but could not find anything. I ate at McDonald’s at two o’clock. Bought cider and sat outside X (a pub) and relaxed, it’s better than sitting alone in my room. At 6 pm I was at a friend (at the SH), listening to music, “old earrings”, nice in some ways, better than being home alone. At nine o’clock I watched TV at home alone, did not have the energy for anything else, mostly crap on TV. (10725)

ISSN: 1471-244X