The development and initial validation of a service-user led measure for recovery of mentally disordered offenders

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the development and initial validation of a brief measure of recovery approach principles for mentally disordered offenders, referred to as the ‘Recovery Journey Questionnaire’ (RJQ). The RJQ was administered to 69 service-users in a medium secure unit in south-east England. The questionnaire had high internal consistency and principal component analysis revealed one conceptually meaningful factor incorporating the key concepts of the recovery approach to care. No gender or ethnic differences emerged with regard to the questionnaire, but as expected, service-users with a primary or co-morbid diagnosis of personality disorder had significantly lower scores than service-users with mental illness only, indicating that the RJQ reflects a theoretical basis of recovery. The RJQ offers a swift, repeatable, reliable and meaningful measure of forensic mental health service-user recovery, which is likely to be applicable to other specialist and generic mental health in-patient services.

Keywords:

• recovery
• empowerment
• recovery journey questionnaire
• mental illness
• personality disorder