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.
Keywords: Health; community mental health; occupational engagement; occupational therapy; social capital.