Mulder CL,van Aken BC and Wierdsma AI
More than a decade ago, Whitley and Drake suggested a dimensional structure for the concept of recovery in psychotic disorder patients. This perspective of multiple objective and subjective dimensions of recovery (e.g. symptomatic, personal and functional recovery) opened a wide range of topics of practical relevance for mental health services. Future research was encouraged to address the question whether progress in one dimension of recovery is predicated by progress in another. However, a recent systematic review of personal recovery in people with a psychotic disorder observed that studies on other than clinical factors as determinants of personal recovery are scarce, as are studies of changes in dimensions of recovery over time. Thus, in spite of a long standing interest in recovery in people with severe mental illness by consumers, clinicians, and policy makers, the field is still faced with a triple fold challenge: (1) to combine different perspectives, (2) to get longitudinal information (including the course of recovery when patients are not in mental health care anymore), and (3) to develop interventions aimed at improving personal and functional recovery from psychosis. In a ten years longitudinal cohort study in the Netherlands, we aim to meet these challenges by focussing on the interrelation of dimensions of recovery and modelling the process of recovery across time.
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