One benefit of the normative scale of occupations in the context of population health and addiction is that it:
A) Cures addiction
B) Promotes readiness to change
C) Removes stigma
D) Provides a population health intervention for addiction

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Wasmuth (2015), building on the concept of occupational balance (Matuska & Christiansen, 2008), introduced the concept of focused flexibility to describe the middle of the scale, in which a person participates in a variety of meaningful occupations that can provide some structure and focus while still maintaining a degree of flexibility and adaptiveness. The person is not rigidly tied to any one all-encompassing occupation, such as an addiction. In a space of focused flexibility, if an injury or contextual factor prevents participation in one occupation, the person is afforded a degree of flexibility to continue participation in other meaningful occupations in order to maintain a consistent but fluid sense of meaning and personal identity, matched with activities that can structure time and contribute to established routines and roles.
While this figure suggests the center of the scale to be indicative of wellness, it is essential to recognize that many individuals may operate successfully at different points on this scale, given supporting environmental circumstances. It is also important to note that the degree to which an occupation or set of occupations constrains an individual (or promotes flexibility and wellness) may be a result of the demands/dictates of the occupation, the impact it has on the individual's psyche, the temporal constraints it imposes, the associated environments, or some combination of these and other factors, such as the person's stage of recovery.
One benefit of this normative scale in the context of population health and addiction is that it conceptualizes addiction in the context of everyday occupations that vary in the degree to which they foster focused flexibility and therefore wellness. Such a scale can be used to remove stigma from conversations about addictive behaviors and their potential harms and benefits by placing addiction on a spectrum with other nonstigmatized activities as they relate to flexibility. The scale can be used to guide discussions about wellness goals and can help occupational therapy practitioners and clients identify alternative occupations that have the potential to promote wellness by focusing on the construct of focused flexibility. Likewise, the scale can assist individuals and societies in reflecting about the degree to which their current occupational lives or societal structures facilitate the desired degree of flexibility and freedom while avoiding overemphasis on the direct health-related harms of addictive substances that research literature suggests can actually impede recovery efforts (Constanza et al., 2017).

One Benefit of the Normative Scale of Occupations in the Context