IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rpsyxx/v8y2016i4p336-345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The costs of friendship: severe mental illness, poverty and social isolation

Author

Listed:
  • Alain Topor
  • Ingemar Ljungqvist
  • Eva-Lena Strandberg

Abstract

Background: The relationship between severe mental illness, poverty and social isolation has been explored in a number of studies.Aim: The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between financial strain and social isolation.Methods: Sixteen persons with severe mental illness were interviewed about their experience of having a severe mental illness, living in poverty and the effect these circumstances had on their social relationships. The interviews were analysed according to thematic analysis.Results: The overarching theme was “the cost of having friends”; it consisted of five categories: the loss of friends; making do without friends; dependence on friends and family; supported socialisation; and money as an aid to recovery. The participants experienced a connection between their financial circumstances, their social relationships and their lack of initiative in maintaining and developing a social network.Conclusions: The results underline the importance of considering the person in his/her social context in order to avoid the risk of interpreting rational strategies for coping as psychiatric symptoms.

Suggested Citation

  • Alain Topor & Ingemar Ljungqvist & Eva-Lena Strandberg, 2016. "The costs of friendship: severe mental illness, poverty and social isolation," Psychosis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 336-345, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpsyxx:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:336-345
    DOI: 10.1080/17522439.2016.1167947
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17522439.2016.1167947
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17522439.2016.1167947?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Louise Mansfield & Christina Victor & Catherine Meads & Norma Daykin & Alan Tomlinson & Jack Lane & Karen Gray & Alex Golding, 2021. "A Conceptual Review of Loneliness in Adults: Qualitative Evidence Synthesis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Shulamit Ramon, 2018. "The Place of Social Recovery in Mental Health and Related Services," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-14, May.
    3. Mona Sommer & Stian Biong & Marit Borg & Bengt Karlsson & Trude Klevan & Ottar Ness & Linda Nesse & Jeppe Oute & Rolf Sundet & Hesook Suzie Kim, 2021. "Part II: Living Life: A Meta-Synthesis Exploring Recovery as Processual Experiences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-22, June.
    4. Mary V. Seeman, 2017. "Solitude and schizophrenia," Psychosis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 176-183, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rpsyxx:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:336-345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPSY20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.