Vocational development of adults with congenital heart disease.

Abstract

The vocational development of 27 young adults with congenital heart disease was explored. Each adult responded to a semi-structured interview designed to elicit his vocational plans, educational plans, work values, work interests, motivation to work, and rehabilitation outlook. The responses were intercorrelated and factor analyzed. The findings were consistent with previous research on the career plans of persons with acquired physical disability. A general proposition may now be stated, namely, career plans, work interests, and work values are better than physiologic measures in predicting the vocational adjustment of children and adults with congenital and acquired disability.The vocational development of adults with congenital heart diseases has been unexplored. The major studies of adults with heart diseases have been conducted on persons with coronary artery disease (White, Rusk,

Adjustment of children with invisible and visible handicaps: Congenital heart disease and facial burns.

“…The interviewers could extrapolate from any one portion of the interview to another portion to accomplish the task of examining fully the area under investigation. The interview form and procedure is an adaptation for children of the Goldberg Scale of Vocational Development used previously with severely disabled adults (Goldberg, 1972(Goldberg, , 1974bGoldberg, Bigwood, MacCarthy, Donaldson, & Conrad, 1972;Goldberg & Freed, 1973;Goldberg & Satow, 1972). The interviews were recorded verbatim, and the transcripts were assigned to two independent judges who had not seen the patients.…”

A Comparison of Work Value Preferences of Individuals With Disabilities and Individuals Without Disabilities

“…Although Rounds (1990) found that work values were better predictors of job satisfaction than vocational interests, the extant research has shown a heavy emphasis toward interests. Minimal research has focused on the work values of individuals with disabilities (see, e.g., Goldberg & Satow, 1972;Goldberg, Satow, & Bigwood, 1973). If congruence of work values with work environment value reinforcers is an important predictor of job satisfaction, then a basic question for rehabilitation counselors is whether individuals with disabilities differ in their work value preferences a University of Memphis conditions manifested over time that are typical of the experiences of individuals with disabilities and consequently progress toward the formation of preferred work values.…”