Occupational Therapists' Perceptions of Quality of Life Among Stroke Clients: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

Background: Occupational therapists' perceptions of the ‘quality of life’ of stroke clients are not uniform, and therefore appropriate quality of life support is not always provided. The purpose of this study was to clarify occupational therapists' perceptions of quality of life of stroke clients and to help develop a new disease-specific quality of life scale and corresponding occupational therapy practice.Method: The research design used was qualitative descriptive study. Inductive content analysis was used for the descriptive data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. The 12 participants included nine authorized by the Japan Association of Occupational Therapists with experience in working with stroke clients and three quality of life expert researchers.Results: The qualitative analysis revealed that occupational therapists' perceptions of stroke clients' quality of life were based on the concepts of ‘Adaptation to meaningful occupation’, ‘Good personal causation’, and ‘Family happiness and good relationships’. Conclusion: Occupational therapy researchers and clinicians can use the three concepts identified in this study to develop new quality of life measures and to develop occupational therapy practice to improve the quality of life of stroke clients.