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De weg naar Geluk : een interviewstudie over de waargenomen veranderingen door de Geluksroute bij eenzame, kwetsbare mensen.

Droste, M.J. (2015) De weg naar Geluk : een interviewstudie over de waargenomen veranderingen door de Geluksroute bij eenzame, kwetsbare mensen.

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Abstract:Background: People with a chronic illness oftentimes cope with physical and financial problems that magnify the impact of their physical and mental shortcomings. Consequently, they are less able to live a happy and joyful life. Since they function less than optimally possible - both individually and socially - they may become isolated, lonely and experience a decreased sense of well-being. Traditional treatments on mental illnesses predominantly center on such troublesome situations and shortcomings in patient's lives. In the outlined case of chronic mental disease, however, this treatment seems to reach its limits. In the past few years, there has therefore been a growth attention on positive psychology. One of the intervention based positive psychology approach is known the Happiness Route ('de Geluksroute' in Dutch). Essentially, it stimulates people’s strengths and social activation and aims to promote people's sustainable well-being. The foundations of the method lie in self-determination theory and mainly build on determinants such as autonomy, competence and relatedness. Purpose: This study aims to investigate how the Happiness Route intervention changes participants well-being and the sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness. This, in turn, helps to understand to what extent these three determinants (and the Happiness Route) influence participants' experienced well-being. Method: Using a semi-structured interview, ten female participants (aged 35-87 years) who have completed the Happiness Route, are examined. To participate in the Happiness Route, subjects had to meet the following criteria; they feel lonely; they face health problems, and have a low socio-economic status. The interviews focused on the live-situations before and after respondent's participation in the Happiness Route. Furthermore, they identified the activities that were chosen as part of the Happiness Route treatment, and evaluated what their change was on the sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Interview data was analyzed by using Atlas.ti. Results: The results show that ten participants participated in the Happiness Route. However nine of ten have chosen an activity. None of the people that successfully accomplished the Happiness Route experienced a worsened personal situation. For six of the subjects, it was clearly found that both the determinants and their sense of well-being increased. For one participant, the Happiness Route had little change. This person did not show a significant improvement regarding any of the determinants. For the last two participants, it was found that autonomy, competence and relatedness increased, while they did not experience an increase in terms of well-being. In sum, seven participants demonstrate that there is a clear link between the three determinants and well-being. Overall, health problems could have affected well-being both positively and negatively. Due to this limitation, it should be taken into account that results may have been changed. Conclusion: The Happiness Route is an intervention that can change autonomy, competence and relatedness of participants positively. This, in turn, seems to cause an improvement in experienced well-being.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/68599
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