Goals with limited vision: a qualitative study of coping with vision-related goal interference in midlife

Objective: To investigate how middle-aged adults manage their goal pursuits in the face of visual disability. Design: Cross-sectional qualitative study. Setting: Vision rehabilitation agency. Subjects: 216 middle-aged adults with visual impairment. Methods: Telephone interviews composed of structured and open-ended assessments of life goals and the strategies used to cope with vision-related goal interference. Results: Individuals reported strategies that reflected the broader domains found in prior research with older adults: internal resource use, new approach use, technology use, help use, and psychological self-regulation. The most frequently reported strategy was help use (n = 192), followed by new approach use (n = 166), internal resource use (n = 162), technology use (n = 159) and psychological self-regulation (n = 130). Across domains, the most frequently reported strategies were instrumental informal help, instrumental formal help, optical aids, and invest effort. Specific strategy domains emerged as more typical in response to interference with particular types of goals; for example, help use was reported by a majority for interference with functional and psychological goals, but only by half for interference with social goals. Conclusions: Study findings revealed a rich array of strategies used by middle-aged adults with vision impairment in their daily lives to deal with vision-related goal interference. Results suggest that rehabilitation services should consider multiple methods of coping and their goal-related function when working with middle-aged adults with disabilities.