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

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Personal recovery; affective symptoms; clinical recovery; empowerment; psychosis; schizophrenia; severe mental illness (SMI).