Group differences in social inclusion between young adults aged 18 to 25 with serious mental illness and same-aged peers from the general community.

Young adults with serious mental illness (SMI) are thought to be socially excluded. However, psychometric measures of social inclusion have not been employed to examine group differences relative to peers from the general community. The aim of this study was to employ such a measure to determine differences in social inclusion between young adults with SMI and peers from the general community. A cross-sectional hierarchical logistic regression was conducted to identify which dimensions and individual indicators from the Filia Social Inclusion Measure (F-SIM) discriminated between Group membership was accounted for by Young adults with SMI are socially excluded relative to peers from the general community in terms of interpersonal connections, vocational engagement, autonomy/independence and housing stability. In addition to the well-established focus on vocational engagement, interventions to improve social inclusion in this population must promote reciprocity within social relationships and healthy autonomy/independence (including stable housing).