Search

Objectives: When considering the personal recovery of people with serious mental illness (SMI), it is essential to examine their reported psychiatric distress and quality of life (QoL). However, there is no consolidated model in the literature that clearly relates these variables. In this study we first analysed the relationships between QoL, psychiatric distress and recovery, and several sociodemographic variables. Second, we analysed the linear effects of psychiatric distress and recovery on QoL. Third, and most important, we tested two hypotheses that considered personal recovery as a moderator or mediator of the relationship between psychiatric distress and QoL. Design and Methods: 234 volunteers with a diagnosis of SMI completed three self‐report questionnaires, The Recovery Assessment Scale‐24, The World Health Organization QoL and the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation‐Outcome Measure, which showed very good levels of validity and reliability. The PROCESS macro for SPSS developed by Hayes (Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression‐based approach, The Guilford Press, 2022) was applied using the Bootstrap method to verify our moderation and mediation hypotheses. Results: We found a negative linear effect of psychiatric distress on QoL, as well as a positive effect of recovery on said variable. Our results do not confirm the moderating effect of recovery on the relationship between distress and QoL. However, we do confirm the second hypothesis; recovery functioned as a mediating variable between psychiatric distress and QoL. Conclusions: These findings allow us to reflect on how personal recovery affect the relationship between psychiatric distress and QoL and discuss its theoretical and practical implications as public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of recovery has become the backbone of mental health services and professional practices. However, research aimed at analysing the conceptualisation of recovery of people diagnosed with severe mental illness (SMI) has an obvious Anglo-Saxon bias. Our objective was to analyse what a sample of 51 users of mental health services diagnosed with SMI in Spain understand by recovery. The participants were interviewed in depth about their concept of recovery, and their responses were thematically analysed by three observers. Four categories of definitions of the concept of recovery were found in the analysis: Socio-Behavioural, Biomedical, Resistance, and Wellbeing-Growth. Inter-rater reliability scores ranged from 0.7 to 0.84 according to Krippendorff's alpha. While the Biomedical category essentially corresponded to the idea of clinical recovery, the Wellbeing-Growth category reproduced the concept of personal recovery (PR) that is dominant in the literature. The most frequent categories were Socio-Behavioural and Biomedical. Assimilation of the PR concept by participants was quite limited. The markedly relational character of the most frequent categories challenges the individualistic core of the classic definition of PR. We advocate the need to make alternative recovery concepts and narratives visible to the mental health services' users and practitioners. The concept of personal recovery is not common amongst mental health services' users as recovery is mainly understood in social and biomedical terms. Different conceptualizations of recovery can coexist in participants. Mental health services should consider alternative narratives to personal recovery. Mental health services should provide resources for creating community and sense of belonging as first strategies for promoting recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe mental illnesses (SMI) in general, and schizophrenia in particular, have been characterized as alterations of the experience of self and identity. When first diagnosed with SMI, the subjective experiences and specific narrative challenges faced by this population are particularly important. Therefore, qualitative approaches which allow to analyze these subjective experiences should be developed. This article presents in detail a specific method, called Social Positioning Analysis, which makes the complexity of narratives and life stories with multiple turning points understandable. To develop this methodological proposal, it has been taken into account the performative aspects of social interaction in which narratives are constructed. The methodology has previously been used in other health contexts and is innovative in the field of mental health. Linguistic criteria, definitions, and multiple examples are included to facilitate its application, as well as some reflections about its potential and possible benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of the stigma construct for the rehabilitation of people with severe mental illness, there are still no scales that offer a measurement for public stigma in Spanish with good psychometric properties. The aim of this paper is to refine and improve an existing scale to measure public stigma towards people with severe mental illness among the Spanish population. We also intended to decrease the number of items in order to facilitate its applicability. 402 college students (73% women) responded to the attributional questionnaire (AQ27) in two subsamples. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis with high cutoffs were conducted. The convergent validity with the resource allocation questionnaire was also tested. We have obtained a parsimonious tool, with 14 items and four factors, and some reliable psychometric indexes and convergent validity. The factors obtained were dangerousness-fear, lack of solidarity, coercion and avoidance. These results improve the findings from other studies that try to validate the AQ27 in other languages. We discuss the different factors that should be considered in the estimation of public stigma and the necessity to implement programmes to reduce it to enable recovery. Since the public stigma of mental illness is an obstacle to recovery and rehabilitation, reliable instruments are needed to assess it. A parsimonious instrument in Spanish with good psychometric characteristics for measuring public stigma is obtained. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, a questionnaire of 14 items is obtained. Four factors constitute the instrument: "dangerousness-fear", "coercion", "lack of solidarity", and "avoidance". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]