Operational criteria and factors related to recovery from schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is often conceptualized by clinicians and researchers alike as a chronic illness with persisting, relapsing or deteriorating symptoms, and no hope for sustained remission and recovery of functioning. Countering this perspective, retrospective and prospective studies with both chronic and recent onset patients suggest that schizophrenia has a heterogeneous course, which can be favorably influenced by comprehensive and continuous treatment as well as personal factors such as family support and good neurocognitive functioning. The factors influencing recovery are mostly malleable through treatment and may often lead to a sustained remission of symptoms and normal or near-normal levels of functioning.To facilitate future research in this area, an operational definition of recovery from schizophrenia is proposed that includes symptom remission; full- or part-time involvement in work or school; independent living without supervision by family or surrogate caregivers; not fully dependent on financial support from disability insurance; and having friends with whom activities are shared on a regular basis. To satisfy the definition of recovery from the long-term illness of schizophrenia, each of the above criteria should be sustained for at least two consecutive years. For validation, these criteria were submitted to focus groups comprising clients, family members, practitioners, and researchers. Using this operational definition, a pilot study was conducted to identify the self-attributions, clinical characteristics and neurocognitive correlates of 23 individuals who have recovered from schizophrenia. The focus groups endorsed most of the criteria as being relevant to the construct of recovery, although there were differences between research investigators and others. The pilot study generated hypotheses for future testing, suggesting that quality of sustained treatment, near-normal neurocognition, and absence of the deficit syndrome were key factors associated with recovery. With operational definitions and variables identified as possible facilitators of recovery, both hypothesis-generating and testing research can proceed with the aim to identify factors that are malleable and can become targets for therapeutic intervention. There are many extant, evidence-based biobehavioral treatments, as well as mental health service systems for their delivery, that could form the basis for rapid progress in promoting recovery. However, obstacles would have to be overcome to the dissemination, re-invention and utilization of empirically validated treatments, while rigorous, controlled research on determinants of recovery are simultaneously begun.