The influence of free choice on meaningful activities for individuals in a forensic ward.

Occupational therapy is based on the principle that the environment, the activity and the person together in order to achieve meaningful activities. Untill now the relationship between these three elements and how it leads to occupation is not clear.

The relation between these three elements will therefore be investigated by interviewing individuals submitted in a forensic psychiatric ward. They can provide rich information about this topic. This is caused by the transitions they made in their lives. Patients will be recruted in the Netherlands.

In addition, they often experience problems when performing activities. These problems originate from restrictions in the current environment, the limited choice of activities and psychological or psychiatric problems.



The research question:

How do male adults with personality disorders who are admitted to the CFPZ – Mondriaan experience the influence of free choice for (meaningful) activities performed in the past, present and future? Which impact did this free choice have on the relation between environment, activity and person?



Using qualitative research, from the hermeneutic-phenomenological viewpoint, the data will be collected by means of In-depth interviews. The participants are selected by purposeful sampling and theoretic sampling. A selection of 5 to 10 participants will be made, each of which will be interviewed 2 or 3 times with a maximum of 1 hour per interview.

Before commencing the interview the participant is required to give his informed consent. The central theme of the in-depth interview is the participant’s experience in the extent of free choice in order to perform meaningful activities in their life.

The data collection, transcription and analysis will be performed using a cyclic iterative procedure. The initial data-collection is followed by data-transcription and data-analysis. On basis of the initial analysis results a second data collection, transcription and analysis round will take place. These steps will be repeated, until saturation of data occurs.

The reliability and validity of the research is increased by describing the process in detail, and using peer-debriefing and member-checking.

N/A

2 or 3 interviews for each participant (max. 1 hour per interview).

In-depth interviews. The central theme of the in-depth interviews are the experiences of
participants in free choice in order to perform meaningful activities
in their life. From these experiences the four dimensions of human
experience are discussed: the lived space, the lived body, the lived
time and the lived social relationships.
Each in-depth-interviews starts with the question: What have you done today?
The participant determines the direction for the remainder of the
interview. The researcher ensures flexibility by asking in more detail
about the participant's answers. Topics that were used: person,
environment, activity, occupation and free choice in past, present and
future.