Optimizing rehabilitation for adults with visual impairment: attention to life goals and their links to well-being

Objective: To examine the importance of different life goals among working-age adults with vision impairment, the extent to which vision impairment interfered with goals, and how rehabilitation addressed these life goals. Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study. Setting: Vision rehabilitation agency. Subjects: Working-age adults with visual impairment. Method: Telephone interviews using structured and open-ended assessments of life goal importance, goal interference due to vision loss, the role of goals in rehabilitation, and indicators of well-being. Results: Eighty-six people participated. The life domains most frequently rated as extremely important were finances (60), residential and domestic arrangements (55), family (51), partner (48), and personal care (48). The extent to which vision loss interferes with these life goals was extreme for finances (46), residential and domestic arrangements (36), partner (27), family (25), and personal care (14). A life goal was addressed in rehabilitation: residential/domestic arrangements (41), work (39), finances (31), leisure/hobbies (28), personal care (24), family (17), partner (16), friends (10), and religion/life philosophy (8). Reports of a life goal being addressed in ineffective ways emerged for functional life goals, but not for relationship and religion/life philosophy goals. Goal interference was significantly correlated with wellbeing indicators across life domains. In contrast only partner and family relationship importance were significantly linked with well-being indicators. Conclusions: Relationship-related goals were a top priority for this study population, but functional compared to relationship goals were more commonly addressed in vision rehabilitation services.