Measuring stages of recovery from psychosis.

Background: Mental health consumers invite us to abandon the pathology model, which is tied to pessimism, and instead to embrace a model of personal recovery that goes beyond being free from symptoms, and involves self-management of the illness. The Stages of Recovery Instrument (STORI) is a measure developed from the perspective of consumers according to a conceptual five-stage model of recovery.

Aims: The main aim of this work was to study the psychometric properties of the STORI, but we also set out to compare the stages of recovery in our sample with the five-stage model in the sample with which the scale was developed.

Methods: Our sample consisted of 95 people diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum psychoses, with a mean age of 34.74 (SD=9.25).

Results: The STORI scores showed adequate psychometric properties in this sample. Cluster analysis indicated that the three-cluster model fitted the data better than the five-cluster model. Internal consistency of the STORI scores ranged between .83 and .87. STORI stages were associated with Recovery Styles Questionnaire scores.

Discussion: The results provide empirical validation of the STORI in other countries. Empirical evidence revealed that the stages of recovery found in our own and other clinical samples differ from those found in the samples with which the scale was developed.