The relationship between occupational balance and health: A pilot study

Abstract

Occupational therapists, physicians and others evince an appreciation of the relationship between balanced lifestyles and health, but there are few studies that concentrate on balance as a key issue. This paper reports on a pilot study that tested the effectiveness of a questionnaire to explore perceptions of occupational bal-ance and its relationship to health. The ultimate aim is to provide information that may assist clients, or the population in general, about potentially healthily balanced configurations of occupation. Using a cluster sampling method and with 146 respondents the results of a questionnaire indicated that, for many of these respondents, perceived ideal occupational balance is approximately equal involvement in physical, mental, social and rest occupations. A correlation between reported good health and the closeness of current occupational patterns to the ideal was statistically significant. These promising results warrant further investigation. 1997 © Whurr Publishers Ltd.