The Role of Occupational Characteristics and Occupational Imbalance in Explaining Well-being

One of the key factors for promoting well-being lies in balancing one’s daily life occupations and the nature of these occupations. Occupation refers to a group of everyday life goal-directed activities which may be associated to any life domain, not necessarily work, such as leisure, education, or self-care. Yet it is not clear what constitutes occupational imbalance, and its association to other factors has not been examined systematically. This study proposed and tested a theoretical model for specifying the structural relationships between occupational imbalance, occupational characteristics, personality and well-being. 288 working adults completed the following questionnaires: Inter-goal Relations Questionnaire (occupational imbalance), Personal Projects Analysis (occupational characteristics), the Big Five Inventory (personality traits) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (well-being). Twenty-five models were tested using structural equation modeling. All the models fit the data well. Occupational characteristics, with the exception of stress, served as significant mediators between personality and well-being, yet occupational imbalance did not play a significant role across all models. Our findings provide substantial support for the importance of Applied Research Quality Life (2010) 5:81–104 DOI 10.1007/s11482-010-9094-6 D. Anaby (*) School of Rehabilitation Science, McMaster University, 1400 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 1C7, Canada e-mail: [email protected] T. Jarus : C. L. Backman Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, CanDo research center, University of British Columbia, T325-2211 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 2B5, Canada T. Jarus e-mail: [email protected] C. L. Backman e-mail: [email protected] B. D. Zumbo Measurment, Evaluation and Research Methodology, University of British Columbia, Building 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada e-mail: [email protected] occupation to well-being, however occupational imbalance is still an elusive concept that requires further investigation theoretically and empirically.