| Many vocational service providers perceive persons with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) to be low on work motivation, yet motivation has been considered to be the most important factor that contribute to a successful employment outcome. Moreover, there is a general lack of understanding in the field of psychiatric vocational rehabilitation about the social and psychological processes that interact to drive volitional behavior.;Self-determination theory (SDT) is a useful framework from which to discern the host of social factors and the subsequent cognitive processes that influence motivation and is the central motivational framework utilized in this study from which an expanded work motivation model was developed which includes: (1) demographic covariates and disabilities related factors (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, educational attainment, functional disability, secondary health conditions); (2) contextual factors (e.g., cultural orientation, perceived workplace stigma), and (3) the central SDT constructs (e.g., autonomy support, relatedness, vocational self efficacy, autonomous motivation). The contributions of each of the personal, contextual, and SDT factors on the outcome variables (e.g., perceived benefits of vocational program, vocational engagement, stages of change in employment readiness), were examined through a hierarchical regression analysis. The study found that overall, the expanded work motivation model based on SDT accounted for over 51% of the variance in perceived benefits of vocational program, 57% of the variance in vocational engagement, and 43% of the variance in stages of change related to employment readiness for persons with SPMI who are participating in the Clubhouse psychosocial rehabilitation program. This study contributes new knowledge about the utility of SDT to examine work motivation factors for persons with SPMI who are traditionally considered "amotivated" to work. Implications for vocational rehabilitation counseling practice to consider autonomy supportive choices for vocational engagement, enhancing relatedness and vocational self-efficacy among the Clubhouse members participating in vocational rehabilitation and the important consideration to cultural orientation (e.g., interdependent self-construal, independent self-construal) for ethnically diverse Clubhouse populations, are indicated. However the lack of members actually working for pay and the high number of members receiving both cash and non-cash public support benefits (e.g., SSI, SSDI), are inherent limitations of this study and should be considered for future research. |
