The sense of empowerment in the early stage of recovery from psychosis

Abstract

Objective: To assess the characteristics, correlates and prediction model of empowerment among patients recovering from psychosis.

Method: Rogers’s Empowerment Scale (ES) was used to assess the sense of empowerment among 110 patients at the early stage of recovery from a psychotic episode. Its correlation with social–demographic, clinical, and personal characteristics are analysed.

Results: The mean score and profile of ES in this Polish study is close to the original ES results. Empowerment correlates positively with the male sex, self-esteem, self-efficacy, resilience, social support, hope, and quality of life; and negatively with depression, loneliness and internalised stigma. The second-order factor analysis of the ES proves the suitability of Corrigan, Faber, Rashid and Leary (1999) model of two superordinate factors/dimensions (individual versus social) of empowerment. The regression model demonstrates that self-esteem and self-efficacy are the main positive predictors while stigma and depression the main negative predictors of empowerment.

Conclusion: The results obtained with a Polish version of the ES proves its comparable suitability. The regression model suggests some priorities in terms of how to enhance empowerment in the early stage of recovery from psychosis illness. The two-dimensional model of empowerment and its clinical application deserves further attention and study.

Keywords:

• empowerment
• psychosis
• crisis
• recovery

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our colleagues, Joanna Krzyżanowska, Aleksandra Kur, Monika Lis-Szymczak, Alicja Multarzyńska, Magdalena Musiałowicz-Paterek, Urszula Olbryś-Bańkowska, Dorota Parnowska, Katarzyna Romanowicz, Izabela Stefaniak, Ewa Winkler, Tomasz Grzegorczyk, and Sławomir Pietrak for their invaluable help in selecting the patients and gathering the information that we needed.