Occupation and well-being in dementia: the experience of day-care staff.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of the staff experience of occupation in the context of day care for persons with dementia. METHOD: Narratives of especially satisfying and dissatisfying experiences of care were elicited from a random state-wide sample of day-care staff members. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the phenomenological data. RESULTS: The core meaning of occupation derived from these data was Occupation as the Gateway to Relative Well-Being. A model of the experience of occupation for staff members is proposed that is composed of three phases: the meeting of minds, engagement in occupation, and relative well-being. The skills of the staff informants that bring about the meeting of minds, the many levels of client engagement in occupation, and the indicators of well-being for clients and for staff members are described. The three phases together constitute an occupational space--created by the staff person--and the engagement in occupation itself constitutes an occupational place within that space. CONCLUSIONS: Bringing about indicators of well-being through occupation was a primary source of satisfaction for the day-care staff informants in this study. The model of the staff experience of occupation proposed in this study has application to all areas of occupational therapy practice.