Identifying factors strongest associated with clinical, societal and personal recovery in people with psychosis with a long duration of illness

Introduction

Most studies on recovery of psychotic disorders focus on first-episode populations using premorbid and baseline data to predict recovery. However, many patients experience a long duration of illness and many factors are dynamic and change during life.

Aims

To investigate factors strongest associated with clinical, societal and personal recovery, and recovery change scores in people with a long duration of illness using current data measured at the same assessment.

Methods

Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analyses with cross-validation were used to identify the correlates of (changes in) clinical (N = 1054), societal (N = 1145) and personal recovery (N = 1187) in people with psychotic disorders. Subsequently, the identified associated factors were included in separate linear regression models, examining the associative strength of the identified variables and overall fit of the models.

Results

Better clinical recovery was associated with better societal and personal recovery, experiencing fewer problems with daily functioning and social relations. Participants had a better societal recovery when they were employed, had fewer problems in daily life, less negative symptoms, had a life partner and better clinical recovery. Personal recovery was associated with greater satisfaction with life in general, no depressive mood and increased clinical recovery. Change scores were small with minimal fluctuation and no significant associations with change scores were detected.

Conclusions

Recovery domains strongly influence each other in people with a long illness duration of psychosis and should therefore have an equally important focus during treatment.