Perceived social status among people with psychiatric disabilities attending work-oriented and meeting place-oriented day centers.

BACKGROUND Day centers have been criticized for giving attendees a lower social status because they only offer activities that are often work-like although not financially of benefit to attendees. OBJECTIVES To explore day center attendees' perceived social status and to identify associations among the attendees with the center's orientation with activity, well-being, and psychiatric symptoms. METHOD Day center attendees in meeting place-oriented (n = 39) and work-oriented (n = 54) day centers in Sweden were interviewed addressing the targeted factors using both self-rated and interview-based instruments. RESULT Attendees rated themselves close to the middle on the social status measure. No difference between groups based on day center orientation was found. Their self-perceived positioning on social status was positively related to the worker role, occupational engagement, self-rated health, self-esteem, self-mastery, and depressive symptoms. Logistic regression models showed better self-rated health was the only predictor of belonging to the group with a higher level of social status when dichotomized according to the median. Self-rated health was the strongest indicator for scoring above the 75th percentile on perceived status, followed by self-esteem, which was also a significant indicator. CONCLUSION These findings yielded new knowledge concerning perceived social status in the target group and the importance of health and self-esteem.