Time use among people with psychiatric disabilities: implications for practice

Area of Science:

• Occupational therapy
• Mental health research
• Disability studies

Background:

• Review of current literature on time use among individuals with psychiatric disabilities.
• Understanding the unique challenges in time allocation and occupational patterns within this population.

Purpose of the Study:

• Characterize time use, occupational balance, and patterns in people with psychiatric disabilities.
• Examine the relationship between time use and health outcomes in this demographic.
• Explore the application of time use in research designs, assessments, and interventions.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of CINAHL and PubMed databases.
• Keywords included: time use, occupational balance, assessment, intervention, mental health, and related terms.
• Review focused on studies examining daily occupations and their impact on well-being.

Main Results:

• Time use for individuals with psychiatric disabilities is frequently limited to basic self-care and sedentary activities.
• This population faces risks of both over- and under-occupation, indicating occupational imbalance.
• Occupational imbalance may stem from a mismatch between individual capacities and environmental factors.

Conclusions:

• Existing time-use methods can study daily occupations in psychiatric populations.
• No interventions specifically based on time use were identified in the literature.
• Principles for a time-use-based intervention are proposed, requiring future research for validation and effectiveness testing.