Factors influencing subjective perceptions of everyday occupations: Comparing day centre attendees with non-attendees

Background: Subjective perceptions of everyday occupations are important for the well-being of people with psychiatric disabilities (PD) and are likely to vary with factors such as attending a day centre or not, activity level, self-mastery, sociodemographic and clinical factors. Aim: To explore differences in subjective perceptions of occupation and activity level between day centre attendees and non-attendees, and to investigate factors of importance for the subjective perceptions of occupations. Methods: The study groups comprised 175 participants: 93 day centre attendees and 82 non-attendees. Data were collected with instruments concerning; subjective perceptions of everyday occupations, activity level, self-mastery, and sociodemographic and clinical factors. Results: Day centre attendees perceived higher levels of occupational value and activity level, while the groups perceived a similar level of satisfaction with daily occupations. For the total sample, self-mastery influenced both valued and satisfying everyday occupations while only value was affected by activity level. Satisfaction with daily occupation increased with age and both value and satisfaction increased with lower levels of psychiatric symptoms. Conclusion: Day centres provide perceptions of occupational value and stimulate activity. Non-differences between the groups regarding satisfaction with everyday occupations implied, however, that day centres might not cover all relevant occupational needs.