ArticleBMC psychology2024
"Recovery activities are needed every step of the way"-exploring the process of long-term recovery in people previously diagnosed with exhaustion disorder.
Article in BMC psychology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- What people with stress-related disorders experience as being supportive for recovery - a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Pooled it
- The experienced route to cognitive health: Cognitive recovery in persons with prior stress-related Exhaustion disorder.BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Experiences of returning to work after sick leave due to exhaustion disorder: a qualitative content analysis.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Lived experiences of how the care relationship in primary healthcare contributes to recovery from stress-related disorders: a reflective lifeworld research study.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2025Article
- Characteristics of digital twins to visualize, monitor and predict outcomes on participation in meaningful activities.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSick-leave rates are high due to stress-related illnesses, but little is still known about the process of recovery from these conditions. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of the recovery process, 6 to 10 years after treatment in people previously diagnosed with exhaustion disorder (ED), focusing on facilitators and barriers for the process of recovery from ED, and recovery activities experienced as helpful during the recovery process.
methodThirty-eight participants (average age: 52 years, 32 females) previously diagnosed with ED were interviewed with semi-structured interviews 6-10 years after undergoing treatment. The interviews were analyzed with thematic analysis.
resultsThree themes resulted from the analysis. The first theme, "A long and rocky road", summarizes the fluctuating path to feeling better and emphasizes barriers and facilitators that affected the process of recovery, with a focus on external life events and the participants' own behaviors. Facilitators were changing workplace, receiving support, a reduction in stressors, and changed behaviors. Barriers were a poor work environment, caregiver responsibilities, negative life events and lack of support. The second theme "Recovery activities are needed every step of the way" describes how both the need for recovery activities and the types of activities experienced as helpful changed during the recovery process, from low-effort recovery activities for long periods of time to shorter and more active recovery activities. Recovery activities were described as important for self-care but hard to prioritize in everyday life. The last theme, "Reorienting to a new place", captures the struggle to cope with the remaining impact of ED, and how internal facilitators in terms of understanding and acceptance were important to reorient and adjust to a new way of functioning.
conclusionsRecovering from ED is a long and ongoing process where recovery activities are needed every step of the way. Our results highlight the importance of supporting personal recovery and long-term behavioral change, addressing individual stressors that may perpetuate the condition, and adjusting recovery activities according to where the person is in the recovery process.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT0073772 . Registered on March 8, 2017. This study was pre-registered on Open Science Framework (osf.io).
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