Cited by 255Mental Health and Patient InvolvementMental Health Treatment and AccessMental Health and Psychiatry

Empirical evidence about recovery and mental health

Open access
Slade, Mike, Longden, Eleanor·2015·BMC Psychiatry

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Two discourses exist in mental health research and practice. The first focuses on the limitations associated with disability arising from mental disorder. The second focuses on the possibilities for living well with mental health problems. DISCUSSION: This article was prompted by a review to inform disability policy. We identify seven findings from this review: recovery is best judged by experts or using standardised assessment; few people with mental health problems recover; if a person no longer meets criteria for a mental illness, they are in remission; diagnosis is a robust basis for characterising groups and predicting need; treatment and other supports are important factors for improving outcome; the barriers to receiving effective treatment are availability, financing and client awareness; and the impact of mental illness, in particular schizophrenia, is entirely negative. We selectively review a wider range of evidence which challenge these findings, including the changing understanding of recovery, national mental health policies, systematic review methodology and undertainty, epidemiological evidence about recovery rates, reasoning biased due to assumptions about mental illness being an illness like any other, the contested nature of schizophrenia, the social construction of diagnoses, alternative explanations for psychosis experiences including the role of trauma, diagnostic over-shadowing, stigma, the technological paradigm, the treatment gap, social determinants of mental ill-health, the prevalence of voice-hearing in the general population, and the sometimes positive impact of psychosis experience in relation to perspective and purpose. CONCLUSION: We propose an alternative seven messages which are both empirically defensible and more helpful to mental health stakeholders: Recovery is best judged by the person living with the experience; Many people with mental health problems recover; If a person no longer meets criteria for a mental illness, they are not ill; Diagnosis is not a robust foundation; Treatment is one route among many to recovery; Some people choose not to use mental health services; and the impact of mental health problems is mixed.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s12888-015-0678-4

Cites

111 of 111 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 112 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. [4]Ciompi L Muller C The life-course and aging of schizophrenics: a long-term follow-up study into old age 1976 Berlin Springer
  2. [15]Slade M Personal Recovery and Mental Illness 2009 Cambridge Cambridge University Press
  3. [77]Thornicroft G Shunned: Discrimination against People with Mental Illness 2005 Oxford Oxford University Press
  4. [97]Claridge G Claridge G Theoretical background and issues, in Schizotypy Implications for Illness and Health 1997 Oxford Oxford University Press 319

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Slade, M., & Longden, E.
Affiliations
  • King's College London (GB)
  • University of Liverpool (GB)
Corresponding author
Slade, Mike
Venue
BMC Psychiatry
Published
2015-11-14
Volume
15
Issue
1
Pages
285-285
ISSN
1471-244X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2175451760
Cited by
255
References
112
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 8 · 2014: 1
FWCI
26.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • BMC Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mental Health and Patient Involvement
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
Keywords
mental health recovery, mental health, remission, diagnosis, treatment gap, schizophrenia, voice hearing, stigma, barriers to treatment, disability policy, trauma, mental health services
MeSH terms
Australia, Mental Disorders, Disabled Persons, Persons with Disabilities, Humans, Insurance, Health, Mental Health, Pensions, Treatment Outcome, Evidence-Based Medicine, Social Stigma

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review