More mental health services are adopting the recovery paradigm. This study adds to prior research by (a) using measures of stages of recovery and elements of recovery that were designed and validated in a non-Western, Chinese culture and (b) testing which demographic factors predict advanced recovery and whether placing importance on certain elements predicts advanced recovery.

We examined recovery and factors associated with recovery among 75 Hong Kong adults who were diagnosed with schizophrenia and assessed to be in clinical remission. Data were collected on socio-demographic factors, recovery stages and elements associated with recovery. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify variables that could best predict stages of recovery. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to detect the classification accuracy of the model (i.e. rates of correct classification of stages of recovery).

Logistic regression results indicated that stages of recovery could be distinguished with reasonable accuracy for Stage 3 (‘living with disability’, classification accuracy = 75.45%) and Stage 4 (‘living beyond disability’, classification accuracy = 75.50%). However, there was no sufficient information to predict Combined Stages 1 and 2 (‘overwhelmed by disability’ and ‘struggling with disability’). It was found that having a meaningful role and age were the most important differentiators of recovery stage.

Preliminary findings suggest that adopting salient life roles personally is important to recovery and that this component should be incorporated into mental health services.