Participation by doing: social interaction in everyday activities among persons with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia impacts on social functioning and participation in everyday life. However, there is limited research describing how persons with schizophrenia interact with others when performing daily activities. The aim of this study is to describe how persons with schizophrenia interact with others while performing everyday activities in different contexts in terms of facilitating and hindering factors. Repeated participant observations of four persons with schizophrenia were conducted in their environment. The observed activities and social interactions were chosen from the participant's daily routines. Field notes were taken during the observations. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. Two themes constitute the main result: Facilitating social interaction in activity performance and Hindering social interaction in activity performance. These two themes serve as headings for sub-themes representing factors influencing social interaction in activity performance. Through a further analysis of the themes the following dichotomous contexts were identified as influential: meaningful/not meaningful activity being performed; attitudes were trusting/lacking trust; and location, at home/outside the home.

If the facilitating contextual factors are considered for each individual when planning and performing everyday activities together with others there is a possibility to improve social interaction skills and thereby participation.