British Journal of Occupational Therapy

While occupational therapists promote quality of life enabling occupation, many receive little to no training on palliative and end-of-life care. This study synthesizes relevant literature to find out what is known about training for them on this matter.

A scoping review using Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework exploring literature on palliative and end-of-life care training in occupational therapy (French or English; undergraduate or graduate). The first author screened the titles, abstracts, and keywords and selected literature to be read by the teams to extract and include relevant knowledge. Corroborated thematic analysis synthesized the findings.

Out of the 384 publications initially identified, 25 were included in the review. To be trained in palliative and end-of-life care, occupational therapists have to (a) be exposed to knowledge on specific (b) topics required for competent practice using (c) educational strategies supporting learning about palliative and end-of-life care.

Whereas introductory-level knowledge of palliative and end-of-life care should be offered to all students, advanced training should allow occupational therapists to master the philosophy of this type of care, deepen the understanding of topics such as being confronted with death, and empower them to advocate for their unique contribution.

The Occupation Matters Programme is an occupational therapy intervention promoting recovery in people with severe mental health conditions, adapted from the Lifestyle Redesign^© approach. With the increasing demand for mental health services and the United Kingdom’s current financial position, there is reason to research the Occupation Matters Programme.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis provided a rich account of the experience of the Occupation Matters Programme, eliciting the service user voice. Four participants participated in semi-structured interviews following session 10 and at the completion of the 20-week programme. Data analysis followed the step-by-step interpretative phenomenological analysis guidelines, enabling themes to be identified that reflected participants’ experiences.

Three major themes were revealed: connecting with others; experiencing an opened-up world through a temporary project and finding a place in the world through a changing sense of self. Three participants described a temporary improvement in their mental health at the halfway point, which became more permanent by the completion of the programme.

This study suggests that the Occupation Matters Programme was influential in the participants’ recovery journeys and provides evidence for Wilcock’s Doing, Being, Belonging and Becoming framework. It encourages occupational therapists to concentrate on occupation-centred practice, occupational integrity and implementing all four aspects of Wilcock’s framework.

The purpose of this study was to examine parental use of evidence-based mealtime strategies, child mealtime behavior, and parental identification of mealtime problems over time as parents were coached to implement the Promoting Routines of Exploration and Play during Mealtime intervention as part of a pilot study.

This repeated measures study included data collection during three phases: (a) pre-intervention; (b) intervention; (c) post-intervention. Primary outcome measures included a parental strategy use checklist (parental strategy use) and the Behavioral Pediatric Feeding Assessment (problematic child behavior and parental identification of mealtime problems). Linear mixed models were fitted to assess change over time.

We observed significant improvements in parental strategy use (p < .001), child mealtime behavior (p < .001), and parental perception of mealtime problems (p = .002) over time.

The results of these analyses signal that empowering parents to integrate evidence-based strategies into child mealtimes is a promising approach to managing child mealtime behavior. More research is needed to determine the true relationship between parental strategy use and child behavior over time.

First-year practice education placements have numerous benefits for occupational therapy students but are resource intensive. In considering alternatives, it is critical to consider students’ voices to ensure that planned experiences enable students to achieve the outcomes they value and need. This study examined undergraduate occupational therapy students’ views about important outcomes and characteristics of first-year placements.

Focus groups were conducted with 18 occupational therapy students and analysed using constant comparative analysis.

Two overarching outcomes were valued: confirmation of occupational therapy as a career choice and experience to draw on for future learning and practice. These outcomes were achievable through four proximal outcomes: understanding occupational therapy; understanding clients; finding out about myself and developing skills. The extent to which the valued outcomes were attained was determined by eight critical experiences: observing an occupational therapist in action; seeing real clients with real issues; seeing positive impact; seeing the bigger picture; accessing the occupational therapist’s reasoning; hands-on doing; getting feedback on skills and thinking analytically/reflectively.

In designing first-year placements, practice educators and academics need to ensure that students are provided with experiences that incorporate reality, participation and making connections to a bigger picture of occupational therapy service provision.

Home assessments are integral to the occupational therapy role, providing opportunities to personalise and integrate care. However, they are resource intensive and declining in number.

A 3-month service development within one United Kingdom National Health Service acute hospital setting explored the concept of using digital technology to undertake remote home assessments.

Four work streams explored the concept’s feasibility and acceptability: real-world testing; user consultations; narrative case study collection; traditional visit resource use exploration.

Project participants were occupational therapists and patient and public representatives recruited via snowball sampling or critical case sampling.

Qualitative data were thematically analysed identifying key themes. Analysis of quantitative data provided descriptive statistics.

The remote home visit concept was feasible within four specific contexts. Qualitative themes suggest acceptability depends on visitor safety, visitor training, visitor induction and standardisation of practice. Consultees perceived the approach to have potential for resource savings, personalisation and integration of care. Barriers to acceptance included data security, data governance, technology failure and threat to occupational therapists’ role and skills.

Applying digital technology to occupational therapy home assessment appears feasible and acceptable within a specific context. Further research is recommended to develop the technology, and test and investigate perceived benefits within wider contexts and stakeholder groups.