Life goals: the concept and its relevance to rehabilitation

Life goals are desired states that people seek to obtain maintain or avoid. These goals may influence motivation to participate in the rehabilitation process. The aim of this paper is to review the literature on life goals and the influence of life goals on the rehabilitation process.

The MEDLINE, EMBASE, Psychlit and CINAHL databases were searched with the keywords goals, life goals, aim of life, meaning of life, motivation, assessment (identification) of life goals, goal planning, disability, coping and rehabilitation.

The initial search produced 917 abstracts. After going through these abstracts, 39 articles were selected for inclusion in the review. Age, gender, personality, experiences and society and environment influence life goals. Pursuit and attainment of life goals affect sense of well-being. Life goals are accessible to conscious awareness and can be identified. Several questionnaires are available for assessment of life goals. Different questionnaires assess different aspects of life goals. All except one of these questionnaires need to be tested for validity and reliability in a rehabilitation setting. Disabilities interfere with goal striving and result in emotional distress. Motivation to participate in a rehabilitation programme depends on concurrence between a patient's life goals and treatment goals. Incorporation of a subject's life goals into a management programme resulted in better outcomes in various physical and psychiatric disorders. There are no data on the efficacy of life goal-orientated rehabilitation programmes.

Life goals influence patients' motivation to participate in and compliance with treatment programmes. We still do not know whether rehabilitation programmes focusing on life goals make any difference in outcome. There is need for further studies in this area.