Personal Recovery of People with Schizophrenia in Martinique: A Qualitative Study

The personal recovery approach in mental health draws on people's own experiences to build care policies. Models of personal recovery constructed in recent decades have been based on studies in Anglo-European cultural settings. No study has been conducted in Martinique, where Creole culture is prevalent. Our work aimed to explore the recovery experiences of people with schizophrenia in Martinique. We carried out a qualitative study. Fifteen people participated in a face-to-face interview, with collection of sociodemographic data. Three themes emerged from the analysis: self-work; evolving illness role; and rebuilding identity. Our results described a recovery process in which strong importance is given to social norms, involving difficult adjustments among multiple therapeutic approaches and overcoming psychological trauma. Access to employment, housing, and financial autonomy was related to social recognition. These results suggested the value of different approaches to aid recovery, including: support from relatives, peers, and caregivers; valuing their experiential knowledge; support for psychological trauma; fighting against the stigmatization of schizophrenia in Martinique; social support for work and housing empowerment; and recognition of the complementarity of the biomedical, religious, and traditional health care sectors.