Petra Wagman

Research

Petra Wagman's research interest concerns the relationship between what people do, what they think about what they do, and how they feel i.e. between activity and health. This encompasses everything from the individual's health to the global consequences of human everyday activities.

One research area relates to people's perceptions of their amount and variation between different everyday activities (occupational balance): occupational balance in different groups and how it can be measured. Petra Wagman is one of the developer of the instrument Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ11) that now is published in ten different languages. She is continuously involved in studies concerning new versions in different languages.

Furthermore, she has a great interest in what can be health promoting despite various challenging situations. She is one of the developers of the new health promoting intervention photosupported conversations BeWell (TM) for people with stress related illness and studies are ongoing to gain further knowledge about the method and its usefulness. 

Another area of interest concerns Sustainable Development and human everyday activities, how occupational therapy can contribute to sustainable development and how the knowledge about sustainable development can be promoted in higher education.

The jey word in her research are: health, health promotion, instrument development, OBQ11, occupational balance, occupational science, occupational therapy, sustainable development, well-being.

Biography

Petra Wagman is a registered occupational therapist working between 1995-2007. She has experience from stroke rehabilitation, elderly care in the municipality, outpatient psychiatric care and forensic psychiatry as well as from rehabilitation in warmer climate. Beside her BSc in occupational therapy, she has a MSc in psychology.

She was employed as a doctoral student in Jönköping University, School of Health and Welfare in 2007 and had a PhD 2012 with the thesis"Conceptualizing life balance from an empirical and occupational therapy perspective". In the thesis, she explored the concepts "life balance" and "occupational balance" which are important in occupational therapy. For instance did she explore the perceptions of life balance among working people and what is considered important for perceiving one's life as in balance.

Thereafter, she has been working as an senior lecturer at the department of rehabilitation and have had various misions over the years.