title: The relationship of rehabilitation center staff and client endorsement of appropriate client behaviors to outcome.
abstract: Clients who enroll in comprehensive rehabilitation centers but fail to complete their planned programs tend to be, at follow-up, less well adjusted than clients who do complete their planned program. Consequently, much research has been directed at understanding why clients fail and at identifying those clients most likely to fail. This study analyzed the relationship of client and staff expectations toward important client behaviors to outcome. Using a two-dimensional scaling technique, staff (n = 74) and clients (n = 268), at a large comprehensive rehabilitation center were asked to judge their acceptance of clients exhibiting either independent or dependent behaviors. Results indicated that both clients and staff approved of independence over dependence, that there was no difference between types of staff in their perceptions of appropriate client behaviors, that there were no significant differences between client program completers and noncompleters in perceptions toward appropriate behaviors, but that there were significant differences between clients and staff in the degree of approval of select client behaviors. Implications for rehabilitation practice and future research are discussed.
mesh_terms: D001242:Assertiveness; D001519:Behavior; D003858:Dependency, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D010349:Patient Compliance; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D012047:Rehabilitation Centers; D000078329:Workforce