Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria

● Published peer-reviewed studies (qualitative/quantitative/mixed methods) investigating the implementation of recovery into adult mental health services for people with serious mental illness (e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression) from the perspectives of staff, decision-makers, clients, and carers.

● Studies reporting a new effort (within the organization or system) to transform services towards recovery-orientation and that is recovery-oriented in line with the definition of personal recovery by Anthony (1993) [2] (not clinical recovery).

● Studies that include a description of the methodology for data collection/analysis in the abstract and full text.

● Studies that report findings related to implementation experience, process, or factors.

● Studies from any country and in any language.

● Studies published from 1998 onwards.

Exclusion criteria

● Studies that describe interventions aimed at enhancing clinical recovery rather than personal recovery.

● Studies on illness management and recovery (IMR), assertive community treatment (ACT), clubhouses, or psychosocial rehabilitation as these predate or do not emerge from the recovery movement and therefore were not considered “new efforts” (including more recent modifications of these—e.g. f-ACT).

● Studies about employment or vocational services and personal budgets (though these are recovery-oriented they represent parallel literatures worthy of separate reviews).

● Studies that describe innovations targeting the use of restraints and/or seclusion or studies whose primary outcome of interest was restraint and/or seclusion rates.

● Studies reporting findings only about personal mental health recovery outcomes.

● Studies solely about recovery in the context of addiction (substance abuse, gambling).

● Reviews or systematic reviews, grey literature (e.g. reports, theses, dissertations, conference abstracts, editorials, letters), or conceptual papers.

● Studies where the population of interest or service offered was specific to minors, youth, or young adults, including first-episode psychosis.

● Studies that were about recovery in the context of natural disaster (e.g. earthquake, flood), physical health problems (e.g. stroke or cancer), eating disorders, mild depression, agoraphobia, postpartum depression, or domestic violence.

● Studies about implementing education around recovery into undergraduate or postgraduate curricula (e.g. nursing, medicine, social work, occupational therapy).

● Intervention effectiveness studies, implementation strategy effectiveness studies, and cost studies that do not report findings about implementation experience, factors, or process.

● Author reflections on implementation process without evidence of a methodology.

● Pre-implementation studies (change not yet implemented).