Exploring the concept of ‘family recovery' in families and individuals with lived experience of psychosis

Introduction. Families play an important role in the clinical and personal recovery outcomes of people with lived experience of psychosis, yet they are also affected by their informal caregiving role. The contributions that families make to service user personal recovery outcomes, as well as to their own personal recovery journeys, has been referred to as ‘family recovery’. The aim of this review was to identify the core components of family recovery by reviewing the empirical research and existing models of family recovery.
Methods: A systematic literature review of peer reviewed published literature on family recovery was undertaken. Assia, CINAHL, psychinfo, Medline, and Web of Science bibliographic databases were searched.

Results: Twelve papers were identified that met inclusion criteria. These comprised eight descriptive models of family recovery and four empirical qualitative papers exploring staff and service user perspectives on family recovery. Family recovery reflected three key components: 1) how families promote the recovery outcomes of people with psychosis 2) the personal recovery needs of family members, and 3) promoting the recovery of the family system.

Conclusions: An understanding of the family experiences of recovery may help to facilitate improved personal recovery outcomes for families. However, the literature remains in its infancy and is hampered by a lack of empirical research. Implications for practice and further research are outlined.