The living conditions for persons with severe mental illness (SMI) have changed dramatically in recent decades, mainly due to the closure of mental hospitals and development of community-based interventions and support. This has created a fragmented institutional landscape and a lack of knowledge concerning the possibility for recovery for persons with SMI in this new landscape. As a consequence of the reorganization of psychiatric care follow-up studies cannot be limited to traditional psychiatric care but must include aspect of the whole society.
This present study, “The Stockholm Follow-up study”, followed 447 persons, diagnosed with psychosis, over a ten year period, 2005-2014. Data were collected from several registers (Statistics of living conditions in Sweden, Cause of Death Register, Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, National In-patient Register, Somatic and psychiatric in-patient treatment, City of Stockholm Social Services database, Local psychiatric activity database).
Twelve persons were also interviewed at several occasions during the studied period.
A central concept in time geography is project, further developed by Ellegård (2001) into individual projects and organizational projects. In analyzing the trajectories these concepts have been given specific meanings. Organizational projects refers to in-patient and community based interventions connected to psychiatric problems and individual projects refers to the social context outside the psychiatric sphere.
The research questions focuses on the organization of daily life: in what contexts are individuals with SMI to be found over a ten year period and how can these trajectories be analyzed and understood? Can the trajectories, for example, be connected to concepts like recovery, status quo or deterioration? Preliminary results show a great variety of trajectories.
Influencing professions , Other overaching themes and conceptual issues , Other overarching themes and conceptual issues
