The Power of Beliefs in Recovery-Oriented Practice: A Brief Report from the STIGMAPRO Survey

Abstract

Despite the international incentives and the worldwide development of recovery-oriented policies, it has proven challenging to establish recovery-oriented mental health services that take into account users' subjectivity and perspectives (Slade et al., World Psychiatry 13(1):12-20, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20084 ). The objective of this study was to identify individual beliefs that are correlated with six recovery-oriented practices in schizophrenia among mental health professionals. Seven individual beliefs were examined for their association with each of the aforementioned practices: belief in recovery possibilities, biological beliefs, desire for social distance, perceived similarities, professional utility beliefs, continuum beliefs, and categorical beliefs. The results indicated that belief in the possibility of recovery from schizophrenia and professional efficacy beliefs were the most strongly associated with the six recovery-oriented practices examined. Conversely, there was a negative association between stigma score (desire for social distance) and the six recovery-oriented practices. The remaining four beliefs-biological, perceived similarity, categorical, and continuum-were found to be more weakly associated with recovery-oriented practices. In light of these findings, it is evident that mental health professionals' individual beliefs warrant further consideration in research endeavors aimed at fostering and facilitating the implementation of recovery-oriented practices.

Keywords: Recovery; Schizophrenia; Stigmatization.