BACKGROUND: Understanding the level of satisfaction an individual attributes to participation in everyday occupations is a necessary ingredient in client-centered interventions. An assumption within occupational therapy is that people are satisfied when they do what they want to do. However, there is inadequate research to empirically support this.

To determine participation in everyday occupations, the Occupational Gaps Questionnaire (OGQ) has been used in a number of studies. To make the OGQ more sensitive, the current version now includes satisfaction as a qualitative aspect.

This study is the first attempt to use the OGQ to ascertain a relationship between satisfaction and participation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore participation in everyday occupations and describe this in relation to satisfaction in individuals, 5 yr after having a stroke.

METHOD: In this descriptive study, 69 persons (mean age = 67 yr, 57% male) answered the OGQ, 5 yr after having a stroke. The OGQ is a checklist with 30 different items dealing with instrumental activities of daily living, work or work-related activities, and leisure and social activities. For each activity, one answers yes or no to the questions (1) “do you perform the activity?” and (2) “Do you want to perform the activity?” The combined responses to both of these questions per activity make up the results of the OGQ. If a person responds yes to one question and no to the other question, a restriction in participation, that is, an occupational gap, is noted for that specific occupation.

Two different types of occupational gaps exist (1) when a person does an activity he or she does not want to do or (2) when a person does not do an activity he or she wants to do. The person assesses his or her satisfaction per item on four levels; very satisfied to not satisfied. Fewer gaps indicate a better outcome. The cutoff for participation restrictions is based on age because of the differences in the median number of occupational gaps in different age groups. Descriptive statistics were used as well as McNemar/χ² to test the differences between the number of occupational gaps and the satisfaction levels per activity in the OGQ.

RESULTS: Seventy percent (n = 48) of the persons had participation restrictions and the greatest percentage of occupational gaps was in the activity sports. Participants were satisfied or very satisfied when participating in everyday occupations. With regard to the relationship between satisfaction and participation, all of the 30 items in the OGQ showed significant differences between satisfaction with participation (not having a gap) and dissatisfaction with not participating in a wanted occupation. Levels of satisfaction decreased somewhat when persons did not do an activity that they did not want to do. This was most apparent in six activities: cooking, doing the laundry, transportation, hobbies, cultural activities, and reading books.

DISCUSSION: These findings support the basic assumption that individuals are satisfied when participating in the occupations in everyday life that they want to do. The results of this study contribute to the research regarding satisfaction with participation and emphasize the importance of measuring satisfaction to enable effective, occupation-based, and client-centered interventions.

IMPACT: Research has given little attention to satisfaction with participation in everyday occupations and only few measures deal with measuring satisfaction. The OGQ is a measure uniting performance, desire, and satisfaction, and it emphasizes the importance of the idiosyncratic combinations of these three concepts in understanding client outcomes.