WORK: A Journal of Prevention,Assessment & Rehabilitation

The simple lifestyle of non-industrialized societies is used to remind us of the essential principles underpinning vocational integration. Best practice in Western societies would seem to heed these principles. Examples are given that can be used to guide and improve practice.

Employment services, including work rehabilitation, for people with disabilities have traditionally been delivered through the voluntary and public sectors in Scotland. The three main statutory agencies are the Department of Employment, the National Health Service, and the Social Work Department. Although occupational therapy is an established component of work rehabilitation programs in several countries (e.g., the United States, Canada, and Australia), it is a comparatively small area of practice in Scotland. However, recent changes in health and social service development, proposed changes to government benefits schemes, as well as health and safety legislation are among the factors that will influence the continued development and expansion of employment services. As such, occupational therapy practitioners will need to look to the public, private, and voluntary sectors as potential new purchasers and employers to bring their skills to this area of professional practice.

This article describes the role of vocational assessment in personal injury compensation cases in the United Kingdom. An outline is given of some of the difficulties the writer has confronted in getting vocational assessment accepted as a legitimate resource in such cases, and the rationale for using American vocational assessment tools is presented. Finally, reference is made to two key legal rulings. The first ruling threatened the use of vocational assessment, and the second went some way toward redressing the balance.

This article outlines a required prevocational assessment course taken by occupational therapy students in Taiwan. Course objectives are to teach basic concepts in work assessment and intervention and provide practical ways of using these concepts in clinical practice. The course content is reviewed; it includes standardized tests; job analysis, vocational evaluation, and work adjustment checklists and report forms; adaptive assessment; clinical observations; and case studies. The scope of practice for occupational therapists in vocational evaluation is also discussed.

A questionnaire composed of 55 items that addressed activities of daily living (ADL) abilities and 13 basic vocational competencies, such as memory and muscular power, was completed by 48 nondisabled male workers aged ≥45 years. The workers were all engaged in the manufacturing industry. All respondents found the following five tasks easy to do: wring a towel, put arms through sleeves, open and shut a door, turn a tap on and off, and open and shut a sliding door. Among basic vocational competencies, the highest performance, with but a small standard deviation, occurred with the muscular power competency; a low performance with a large standard deviation (P=0.05) occurred with concentration. No age difference was discerned in planning ability, cooperativeness, muscular power, staying power, manual adeptness, and sense of equilibrium, whereas in learning ability, agility, and concentration, people aged ≥65 years showed significantly lower performance (P=0.05). The characteristics of vocational competencies in manufacturing industry workers aged ≥45 years were fond to be linked to ADL abilities, and the effectiveness of the ADL abilities survey, prepared on an experimental basis, was confirmed for the evaluation of vocational competencies.

This article describes the launch of Disability Leave as a pilot policy in the United Kingdom. The nature and purpose of Disability Leave and the nature of the pilot program are discussed. Some implications of Disability Leave for employees, employers, and disability services, as well as national and international implications, are presented.

During the spring of 1994, the author visited innovative and good practice, mental health rehabilitation schemes in the United States. Current practice and the training of staff especially in the field of work rehabilitation, was observed, and comments are made on the positive features of these exemplary schemes and their programs. There are both striking similarities and differences in the philosophy and delivery of mental health work rehabilitation services in the United States and United Kingdom. The move away from the traditional workshop model to placing people in competitive employment, strongly emphasized in the United States in recent years, has shown promising results. The employment models used, and their relevance to services in the United Kingdom, are discussed. Ideas and information generated by the visit will be used to develop work rehabilitation services within the author's organization and in Oxfordshire as a whole.

Occupational therapy is a female dominated profession: only 3% of all clinicians are men. The purpose of this investigation was to identify variables that affect the job satisfaction of male occupational therapists. Specifically, the study examined five job satisfaction factors (work, pay, coworkers, supervision, and promotional opportunities), work environment traits, community role strain, colleague role strain, patient role strain, role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, and specific demographic characteristics of male occupational therapists. A mailed survey questionnaire was sent to all male clinicians who were members of the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (n = 199) during the 1990–1991 membership year. Eighty-three percent of the sample responded (n = 164). Of these, 74% said they expect to leave the occupational therapy profession within 10 years. Most male occupational therapists reside in Ontario, are 33 years old, work with an adult client case load in a general hospital setting, and spend half their time in direct client care. Respondents indicated that, as a group, they are very dissatisfied with their work, pay, promotional opportunities, supervision, and coworkers. Male occupational therapists rated their work environments as above average in terms of physical comfort, but below average for control. As a group, male occupational therapists experience an average level of community, colleague, and patient role strain. Similarly, they experience an average degree of role conflict and role overload, but reported a low level of role ambiguity. Significant predictors of respondents' global job satisfaction were examined by multiple regression analysis. Five factors were determined to be significant predictors of global job satisfaction: community role strain, number of hours of overtime worked on a weekly basis, involvement, year of graduation from professional training, and colleague role strain. Recommendations for occupational therapy personnel and future research are made based on these results.

This article discusses the results of a study done in England that examined the activity involvement of people >60 years of age. Data were gathered through surveying two local newspapers, face- to face contacts, telephone calls, and letters. Areas examined included health and community welfare, education, politics, legal matters, religious affairs, businesses, environmental issues, and creative activity. Results found that many of the community's older people are productively occupied in these various areas. Positive and negative influences on their involvement are discussed, us well as ways of increasing older people's involvement in the future.