Participants' Lived Experience with the Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) Program in Relation to their Recovery-Process.

The Illness Management and Recovery program (IMR) is developed to support people with severe mental illnesses in their recovery-process. The theory behind the program highlight the importance of helping people develop tailored illness management skills which will help achieve personal and clinical recovery. However, little is known about participants' experience with IMR in relation to their recoveryprocess. The aim of the present study is to describe the participants' lived experience with IMR, explore whether they experienced changes, and examine how these changes related to their recovery during or after their participation in IMR. A Qualitative study. The participants' experience with the IMR program in relation to their recovery unveiled three main themes; "Social connection with other IMR-group members', 'In IMR, we talked about our everyday lives with mental illness' and 'In IMR we learned about recovery as a personal experience'.

Participants' lived experience of pursuing personal goals in the Illness Management and Recovery program.

BACKGROUND: The Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program is designed to support people diagnosed with severe mental illness in developing tailored illness-management skills and to pursue personal goals. Although IMR is a goal-oriented program, little is know about the participants' experience of goal-setting as part of IMR. AIM: To describe participants' lived experience of personal goal-setting as part of the Illness Management and Recovery program (IMR). METHOD: A descriptive, phenomenological research design was employed with individual interviews. RESULTS: IMR helped the participants break down their personal goals into manageable short-term goals. The main themes were as follows: 'We were guided to set clearer and specific goals in IMR', 'We were encouraged to pursue our personal goals in IMR' and 'We were encouraged and supported to resume work on our goals when we stopped making progress'. The findings emphasise goal-setting in IMR as a means to instilling hope for the future and work on goals. CONCLUSIONS: The participants learned to identify, articulate and initiate work towards short- and long-term goals when guided by the instructor and supported by peers in the IMR group. Goal-setting is a useful method for breaking down personal recovery goals into a practical short-term goals and motivating participants to pursue them. The findings indicate goal-setting is an important part of the IMR-program, but suggest that flexibility in goal-setting is needed, especially in the time required to achieve personal goals.

'I have potential': Experiences of recovery in the individual placement and support intervention.

BACKGROUND: The individual placement and support (IPS) intervention supports persons with severe mental illness in achieving competitive employment. Although the IPS intervention is labelled a recovery-oriented intervention, little is known about how participants experience IPS to influence recovery. The aim was to investigate how IPS and employment influence recovery in persons with severe mental illness. MATERIAL: A qualitative phenomenological hermeneutic study of experiences of 12 participants in IPS. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: IPS and competitive work have an impact on personal recovery, may influence work functioning and decrease depressive symptoms, but do not seem to have an impact on psychotic symptoms.