106 Chapter 6 patients with psychotic disorders, only modest associations between clinical and personal recovery measures were found. Affective symptoms were found to have more impact on personal recovery than psychotic symptoms (16). In line with these findings, a large prospective study of first episode patients did not find symptoms of psychosis to be a relevant predictor of personal recovery, but a primary affective disorder predicted lower recovery scores 20 years later (iHOPE study) (17). These results imply that exclusively aiming at reducing psychotic symptoms might not result in improved personal recovery (18). Song investigated associations between personal recovery and five groups of independent variables: sociodemographic variables, illness-related variables, resilience, formal support and informal support in a Taiwanese sample of patients with a severe mental illness (19). Their findings revealed that resilience, family support and the extent of rehabilitation service use showed the strongest correlations with personal recovery. To the best of our knowledge, research into the possible predictors of personal recovery has only been done in patients, not in healthy siblings of patients, nor in healthy controls. Assuming that personal recovery (in terms of overcoming a life event) is also relevant to non-patients, like Anthony (7) stated, we expect that there are similar factors that influence personal recovery. In the current study, we aim to investigate which individual and environmental factors influence personal recovery in patients with non-affective psychosis, their unaffected siblings and healthy controls. If the same factors are applicable for patients and non-patients, this may imply that the road to recovery has universal components. Based on the findings in the former study of Song, we expect to find good functioning (e.g. having work, being in a relationship, having friends) and individual factors of resilience (e.g. positive beliefs about self and others and functional coping strategies) to be positively associated with personal recovery across all groups (patients, siblings and controls) (19). Based on our own previous research (16, 18), we expect that illness-related factors have limited association with personal recovery. We anticipate that [subclinical] affective symptoms have more impact on personal recovery than [subclinical] psychotic symptoms in patients, siblings and healthy controls. METHODS For this study, data from a naturalistic longitudinal cohort study, Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP), were used (20). GROUP participants were included by a consortium of four university psychiatric centers (Amsterdam, Groningen, Utrecht and Maastricht) and their affiliated mental health care institutions in the Netherlands
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