What does recovery mean to young people with mental health difficulties? – “It’s not this magical unspoken thing, it’s just recovery”

Abstract

Background: There is extensive literature documenting the nature of recovery in mental health in adult populations, but there is very little exploring its nature and meaning for young people.

Aims: To gain a detailed understanding from the perspective of young people about the concept of recovery in young people’s mental health.

Method: Semi structured interviews were conducted with 23 young people. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Themes emerging from the interviews included young people’s dynamic conceptualisations of recovery, awareness of others views of recovery, polarised goals of recovery, and facilitators and barriers of recovery.

Conclusions: To be relevant for young people, the mental health recovery model must incorporate individual needs, developmental considerations and fluctuations in goals. It must also be embedded within the young person’s ecological system such as family, friends and school, and be focussed around an explicit and collaborative recovery discussion with the young person.

Keywords:

• Recovery
• mental health
• CAMHS
• youth mental health

Ethical approval

Approved by East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 17/EE/0231) on 7th July 2019.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the young people who took their time to speak with them and share their experiences, and to all the staff who supported the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).