Client experiences of helpful factors in a day treatment program: a qualitative approach.

The goal of the present study is to provide more information about which specific aspects of a day treatment program are experienced as most helpful by the patients. A semistructured interview was conducted. The narrated episodes were analyzed using a combination of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1997) and qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2000). The authors collected 69 interviews of 26 patients over a 12-month period. The results show eight groups of helpful factors (the transfer factors being the most specific day clinical group) that are embedded in a conceptual frame of other categories. The discussion shows how they can be linked to other theoretical and empirical concepts, including the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (Stiles et al., 1990).