Rehabilitation in the real-life environment of a shopping mall

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore how shopping malls could be used during rehabilitation and to identify the facilitators and barriers to their use.

Method: Two focus groups, conducted with 15 rehabilitation professionals from various disciplines and working with people with disabilities of all ages were structured around two topics: (i) The usage of malls for rehabilitation and (ii) Factors that facilitate or limit rehabilitation professionals’ use of the mall as an environment for clinical assessment and/or intervention.

Results: The thematic analysis revealed that shopping malls were used to achieve several rehabilitation goals targeting physical and cognitive skills, psychological health and socialization. This real-life environment is motivating and helps foster independence and normalization. Factors affecting mall use during rehabilitation included personal factors (e.g. clients’ personality and level of readiness) and environmental factors (e.g. clinical context, accessibility of the mall and social attitudes of store owners).

Conclusion: Shopping malls may be a relevant rehabilitation assessment and treatment environment that could contribute to optimizing community integration of people with disabilities.

Implications for rehabilitation

• To ensure successful community reintegration, clients could be trained at some point during their rehabilitation, to perform activities in real-life settings, such as a shopping mall.

• Shopping malls appear to enable the attainment of rehabilitation goals targeting a variety of skills.

• This real-life environment appears to be motivating and helps foster independence and normalization.

• Factors felt to affect mall use during rehabilitation include personal factors (e.g. clients’ personality and level of readiness) and environmental factors (e.g. clinical context, accessibility of the mall and social attitudes of store owners).

• The shopping mall may be an untapped resource as it appears to be a relevant rehabilitation assessment and treatment environment that could contribute to optimizing community integration of people with disabilities.

Keywords:

• Participation
• community rehabilitation
• shopping mall
• environment

Acknowledgements

We thank the research assistant, Frédéric Messier, for his help in the data collection and the thematic analysis and the participants who took the time to share their experience with our team.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec (OPHQ) and the Réseau provincial de recherche en adaptation-réadaptation (REPAR).