Boredom during Day Activity Programs in Rehabilitation Centers

Abstract

Day structuring while providing meaningful activities for persons with chronic mental health problems is a key goal of day activity programs in rehabilitation centers. Nevertheless, research has seldom investigated organizational characteristics promoting the experience of meaningfulness in clients. This study explores these organizational determinants using information gathered from 646 clients of fifty-three rehabilitation centers providing day activity programs in the Flemish region of Belgium. Describing boredom as a feeling of anxiety about the lack of meaningfulness of an activity or a situation, the study relies on multilevel analysis to predict the prevalence of boredom among several features of the rehabilitation settings. The experience of boredom is prone to the presence of routinized activities lacking intrinsic meaning and lacking emphasis on task completion. In larger centers, the emphasis on task completion functions as a mechanism to create meaning. To obtain the same goal in smaller centers, the staff provides clients with nonroutinized, intrinsically rewarding activities.