"I Need You to Help Me, Why You Break Me?": Factors Hindering Recovering from Mental Disorders: A Qualitative...

Recovery for people with lived experience (PLE) involves living a meaningful life within the community despite the limitations imposed by mental disorders. However, recovery can be hindered by factors beyond the symptoms themselves, including the stigmatising attitudes and behaviours of community members. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of these hindrances is essential for informing effective preventive strategies that can be implemented by caregivers and healthcare professionals. Despite its importance, limited research has explored the factors that impede recovery from a shared perspective of PLEs, caregivers, and nurses-highlighting a critical gap in the literature.

This study explores PLEs, caregivers and registered nurses' sharing perspectives on factors hindering recovery in the collectivist society of Saudi Arabia.

An exploratory descriptive qualitative methodology was employed using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 PLEs, 10 caregivers and eight registered nurses and inductive thematic analysis of the data.

Society stigma, broken family bonding, unempathetic behaviours and toxic positivity were identified as factors hindering PLEs' recovery, leading them to adopt behaviours to protect their mental wellbeing.

Regardless of the origins of stigma, resisting and protesting it may indicate that PLE overcame barriers to recovery.

Future research should investigate the implementation of recovery-oriented language. Studies should explore the concept of toxic positivity among PLE and their caregivers. Global mental healthcare systems should establish and sustain a trauma-informed care to mitigate negative effects of factors hindering recovery. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative studies' 32-item checklist was followed in this study.