Personal recovery suits us all: A study in patients with non-affective psychosis, unaffected siblings and healthy controls.

Personal recovery transcends illness and is a unifying human experience. Core elements in personal recovery are hope, meaning, and rebuilding oneself. Here we aim to investigate whether factors associated with personal recovery in patients with non-affective psychosis, unaffected siblings and healthy controls are similar. We investigated the association between personal recovery and resilience, social support, socio-demographic and illness-related variables in 580 patients, 630 siblings, and 351 healthy controls who participated in the Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) study. Bi-variate associations between personal recovery and individual variables were assessed and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to estimate the proportion of variance in personal recovery that could be accounted for by the predictors and to investigate which predictors independently added to the model. Positive self was significantly and independently associated with personal recovery in all three groups. Pro-active action taking also seems to be important. Social functioning significantly contributed to explained variance in patients and siblings. Regarding illness-related factors, depressive symptoms had impact on personal recovery in both patients and siblings, whereas positive symptoms only did in siblings. The findings imply that not only personal recovery itself, but also some associated factors are universally human and suit us all. This means that patients and non-patients share supportive factors of personal recovery which may help to reach mutual understanding. Recovery-oriented practices and mental health services might be more effective when focusing also on improving self-image, functional coping styles and generating social interaction, next to the reduction of affective symptoms.

The impact of affective symptoms on personal recovery of patients with severe mental illness.

BACKGROUND: Clinical recovery is often defined as remission of symptoms. Personal recovery is described as growing beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness, sometimes despite ongoing symptoms. AIMS: To examine the relationship between the severity of clinical symptom domains and personal recovery in patients with severe mental illness (SMI). METHODS: Symptom severity and personal recovery of 105 outpatients with SMI at Mentrum, part of Arkin Institute for Mental Health in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, were assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-Expanded Version (BPRS-E) and the Mental Health Recovery Measure (MHRM). Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate the associations. RESULTS: The multiple regression analysis showed that only affective symptoms significantly predicted personal recovery, whereas neither positive nor negative symptom severity added to the explained variance in the model. CONCLUSION: The association between affective symptoms and personal recovery in patients with SMI implies that treatment of affective symptoms may advance personal recovery, and/or support of personal recovery may improve mood, whereas focussing on treatment of psychotic symptoms might not be the key to personal recovery. More research is needed to elucidate causal interrelations.

The Relationship Between Clinical and Personal Recovery in Patients With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Patients describe experiencing personal recovery despite ongoing symptoms of psychosis. The aim of the current research was to perform a meta-analysis investigating the relationship between clinical and personal recovery in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. A comprehensive OvidSP database search was performed to identify relevant studies. Correlation coefficients of the relationship between clinical and personal recovery were retrieved from primary studies. Meta-analyses were performed, calculating mean weighted effect sizes for the association between clinical and personal recovery, hope, and empowerment. Additionally, associations between positive, negative, affective symptoms, general functioning, and personal recovery were investigated. The results show that heterogeneity across studies was substantial. Random effect meta-analysis of the relationship between symptom severity and personal recovery revealed a mean weighted correlation coefficient of r = -.21 (95% CI = -0.27 to -0.14, P < .001). We found the following mean weighted effect size for positive symptoms r = -.20 (95% CI = -0.27 to -0.12, P < .001), negative symptoms r = -.24 (95% CI = -0.33 to -0.15, P < .001), affective symptoms r = -.34 (95% CI = -0.44 to -0.24, P < .001) and functioning r = .21 (95% CI = -0.09 to 0.32, P < .001). The results indicate a significant small to medium association between clinical and personal recovery. Psychotic symptoms show a smaller correlation than affective symptoms with personal recovery. These findings suggest that clinical and personal recovery should both be considered in treatment and outcome monitoring of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.