Individual Functioning and Residential Environment Quality Affecting Italian Disabled People’s Daily Life

The World Health Organization (WHO), with the publication in the 2001 of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health: ICF, proposed a new model of disability, based on the integration of the social and medical opposing models, the biopsychosocial one. The concept of disability was considered as the result of the relationship between the condition of health of an individual and the contextual factors (personal and environmental ones) that represent the circumstances in which the individual lives (WHO, 2001). For the fist time, environment was listed in a classification of disability. Following the perspective of the ICF, Fougeyrollas and Noreau (Fougeyrollas et al., 1998; Noreau et al 2004) developed a scale, the Life Habits (Life-H), in order to measure the role of environmental determinants in the performance of daily activities and the achievement of social participation by persons with disabilities. The Life-H, as well as being a valid self-administered tool to measure disability according the biopsychosocial model, was proposed by Fougeyrollas and Beauregard (2001) along with the Disability Creation Process (DCP) model. The DCP is an explanation model developed to identify causes and consequences of a disease involved in the development of a person. This model consider as essential for personal and social people’s well-being, the accomplishment of regular activities as prepare the meal, take care of oneself, moving around or maintaining social relationships. The Life-H, therefore, measures the accomplishment of life habits, by identifying the result of the interaction between the person and his/her environment (home, work, school and neighbourhood) that means quality of the person’s social participation or the intensity of the disability experienced by that person (Life-H, 2003). However the Life-H is most focused on the measure of the level of the accomplishments of daily activities and the resulting satisfaction achieved, but it is less oriented to stress the role of the perceived quality of the environment experienced on the satisfaction itself. Referring to the psychological environmental domain, therefore, the residential satisfaction is conceived as a multidimensional construct including spatial, social-relational, functional, and contextual aspects (Bonaiuto, Fornara, Bonnes, 2003). In particular, a specific tool composed by four evaluative scales was developed to assess perceived residential environment quality (PREQ) (Bonaiuto, Fornara, Bonnes, 2003; 2006).