Methodological Issues in Recovery Research

This chapter describes methodological issues that are relevant for research on recovery. We aim to provide an overview of methodological approaches that have been or can be used in recovery research, and to provide methodological guidelines that researchers may use in assessing the process of recovery. We argue that studies on recovery must be explicit about recovery settings, recovery processes (i.e., activities and experiences) and recovery outcomes. We describe typical operationalizations of these three perspectives and focus in more detail on potential measures of recovery outcomes. We give an overview of research designs including experiments and quasi-experiments, diary studies, and longitudinal field studies. We conclude by pointing to remaining challenges for researchers in the area of recovery.