Table 3.

Patient and volunteer accounts of participating in the intervention

Patient experiences

‘Before the programme I was worried how it was all going to look like. Are we going to get along? What would we talk about? Who would the person be? I was wondering, why am I doing all this? But now I'm happy I did it. …Afterwards, it was easier for me to contact and talk to new people and even people I already know. I started to hang out more with other people, that's something I wasn't used to… ' (Patient 010)

‘…in the beginning I was very sceptical, but as it started developing, I changed my mind and at this point I can say it is a great thing for people with mental illness… I think it is so important to have an intervention like this because I think it is important to have something more than just medication… you just need something beside the drugs.’ (Patient 051)

‘Having someone to go out with beside my mum, was meaningful for me, especially just after the hospitalisation… my family was with me of course, providing support but having someone who is not from your house is very different. I believe I have one more friend now. I'm glad we were introduced to each other and matched this way. We've continued contact and meetings after the intervention too.' (Patient 058)

Volunteer experiences

Throughout our friendship, I felt like his self-confidence raised, he became to start the conversation, also to invite other people out, and that also made me feel happy and somehow, at least partly, responsible for that. That rewarding feeling was something that made me to go to the next meeting… I couldn't imagine a better feeling than helping that young man feel better about himself.' (Volunteer 032)

I noticed that he was a bit different, a bit more open every time we met. He started to talk more about going out with people… I believe that's what motivated me the most to continue with meetings.’ (Volunteer 025)

‘I've never had contact with someone who has severe mental illness, but I didn't expect it to be this way. I expected to have much more difficulties in communication, so I was truly surprised when my friend and I started to talk about things easily, even some things I didn't used to share easily with some of my closest people.' (Volunteer 004)

‘From this perspective, all those stereotypes about mentally ill people seem so unnecessary and exaggerated. I've never regretted being a part of this programme, and something similar ever happens again, I would be happy to be a part of it.’ (Volunteer 032)