Subjective Recovery in Patients with Schizophrenia and Related Factors

Subjective recovery is a personally perceived recovery involving other factors beyond clinical recovery. This study aims at investigating the factors related to subjective recovery in patients with schizophrenia living in Turkey. This study assessed 120 clinically stable outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder using the clinical and psychosocial scales. Gender, type of the diagnosis of disease, and age of the illness onset were found to be correlated with the subjective recovery. Subjective recovery was significantly correlated with CGI-S (r = − 0.25), total PANSS score (r = − 0.29), global assessment of functioning (r = 0.27), social functioning (r = 0.43), internalized stigma (r = − 0.38), self-esteem (r = 0.56), depression (r = − 0.59), and hopelessness (r = − 0.55). Hopelessness and self-esteem were found to be predictive of the subjective recovery explaining 52% of the variance. It can be argued that efforts to promote hope and self-esteem contribute to the subjective recovery.