Unique core skills: Exploring occupational therapists' hidden assets

Abstract

Introduction

Early literature considered occupational therapists' unique core skills in terms of visible activities. Suggestions of what these may be have often confused skills with techniques and personal attributes and thus arguably have had some negative consequences for the profession.

Method

An electronic and hand-searched review of past and present professional and adjunctive literature led to the inductive development of five themes: an historical perspective of core skills; defining occupational therapy; the occupational therapy process; practice skills and defining unique core skills.

Discussion

Literature has indicated that occupational therapists' unique core skills are those common non-visible skills based around unique reasoning processes that translate occupational therapy theory and knowledge into visible professional practice. Visible skills are context dependent and should not be seen as core.

Conclusion

The unique core skills of occupational therapists are largely hidden. They are the reasoning skills used to apply the understanding of occupation and its impact on health to the meaningful activities and occupations of service users. Visible practice skills are diverse and some may be shared with other professions. While some activities can appear mundane, forming the rationale for their use is the unique core skill of occupational therapists.