Contributing to ‘a sense of purpose’ – Evaluating consumer recovery progress after attending a therapeutic-recreation intervention programme: A quantitative analysis

Introduction: The recommended objective for mental health plans and policies is the adoption of recovery approaches to mental healthcare. Mental health recovery is no longer defined by symptom resolution but as a journey towards a meaningful life from the consumer’s own perspective. Recovery approaches focus on consumers’ strengths, feelings of well-being and the achievement of personal goals. Designing recovery-oriented interventions is crucial for supporting people in their personal recovery journey. Aim: This study sought to evaluate how attending a recovery-oriented intervention impacts the recovery of attending people living with serious mental illness. Methods: A quasi-experimental approach was utilised to examine changes in self-reported recovery progress in a purposive sample of consumers living with enduring mental illness ( N = 105). Recovery progress was evaluated via the Recovery Assessment Scale – Domains and Stages (RAS-DS). Data were collected at entry and exit to a therapeutic recreation programme grounded in principles of recovery-oriented care and social contact theory. Pre-post scores were analysed via a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (RM-MANOVA) per the four RAS-DS recovery domains. Results: After attending the therapeutic recreation programme, consumer recovery scores significantly increased in the functional, personal, and social recovery RAS-DS domains as measured by ‘ Doing Things I Value’, ‘Looking Forward’, and ‘ Connecting and Belonging’ (respectively). No changes were observed to consumers’ clinical recovery progress, as assessed via the recovery domain ‘ Mastering my Illness’. Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrate that therapeutic recreation camps can provide a recovery-based approach to mental healthcare, with positive effects on the three areas of: a purposeful life; connection and belonging; and optimism and hope. Recovery Camp has been previously identified by the Productivity Commission as having potential person-centred recovery benefits for mental health consumers. The results of this study now establish these benefits as evidence based and can be used to guide mental health practice and policy for the implementation of therapeutic recreation camps for mental health recovery.