British Journal of Occupational Therapy

The aim of this preliminary study was to determine the effectiveness of the Nintendo Wii Fit as an occupation to promote weight loss in undergraduate students.

Five first-year female students living on campus at a northeastern university in the United States were recruited to participate in this study.

An A-B single subject design was created where participants were separated into three groups: a typical activity group and two Wii conditions (Wii Fit individually and Wii Fit with another participant). In all conditions, participants recorded their daily food intake and daily number of steps using a pedometer. Body mass index (BMI) and weight were recorded at baseline, at 6 weeks and at 12 weeks (the conclusion of the intervention). At baseline and 12 weeks, motivation and activity level were measured.

There was a significant change in BMI, weight and motivation for participants in the singles group.

Although the sample size was very small, the results of this preliminary study suggest that the Wii Fit should be considered by occupational therapists as a potential occupation of weight control in undergraduate students when performed individually.

This article describes the experiences of occupational therapy students over the course of three mindfulness programmes, designed to support them in managing stress in their personal and professional lives.

Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to explore the experiences and perceptions of 20 students undertaking these introductory programmes of mindfulness. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires and emails.

Five themes are presented to demonstrate the effects of mindfulness on students' personal lives, academic work and practice placements. Obstacles to mindfulness practice were found, alongside evidence of benefits in enhanced self-awareness and insight into habitual thought patterns. Techniques for managing stressful situations were used successfully.

Implications arising from the study are discussed, including the potential for the future inclusion of mindfulness training within the occupational therapy curriculum.

In order to achieve a fairer system of health care, it is important that the research and education of health professionals, as well as the organisation of health care, takes into account the gender perspective. The gender order influences women's and men's lifestyles and living conditions and, through this, their health, quality of life and daily activities. The aim of the present study was to explore the perceptions of gender in occupational therapy students in their choice of activities: do students choose activities according to traditional roles?

The method was a fictional case study containing 16 activities. Each student was given a copy of one of the versions of the case, Eric or Erica. The students were told to underline the three activities regarded as being of most benefit for the actual patient. Eight male and 99 female students participated.

The most chosen activities were cooking, visits to cafeterias and gardening, and the least chosen were spinning, laundry and computer work. The results showed that the students made choices based on traditional gender roles.

Extended knowledge is needed about how gender is constructed in occupational therapy, and about whether gendered choices contribute to a prolonged period of treatment or rehabilitation, or the opposite.

Payment by Results (PbR) was recently introduced to mental health care in England. The system allocates service users to one of 20 clusters and will provide funding based on cluster membership, rather than on block contracts. Occupational therapists are challenged to define care packages for each of the clusters.

To facilitate their development, this study identified the occupational profiles of service users in each cluster based on measures offered by the Model of Human Occupation. The study used existing data from the clinical records of 625 service users from two organisations, collected through use of the Mental Health Clustering Tool and the Model of Human Occupation Screening Tool.

Across the sample, service users showed greatest problems with habituation, followed by volition and process skills. Qualitatively distinct occupational profiles were identified across the clusters. Service users with non-psychotic problems showed the least interference with occupational participation; those in clusters involving psychosis showed moderate levels of interference; and those in clusters involving cognitive impairment demonstrated the most difficulty with occupational participation.

These findings provide an important evidence base for thinking about the occupational needs of service users within the various PbR clusters and the corresponding services that might be offered.

Occupational therapists often assess visual motor integration (VMI) skills. It is, therefore, imperative that therapists use VMI tests with robust measurement properties.

This study examined the convergent validity of two VMI tests used to assess children, adolescents and adults.

Three groups of healthy participants (n = 153) completed the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (DTVMI) and the Full Range Test of Visual Motor Integration (FRTVMI). Seventy-three children aged 5–10 years (37 males and 36 females; mean age 7.5 years, SD = 2.20), 19 adolescents aged 11–17 years (8 males and 11 females; 13.1 years, SD = 2.16), and 61 adults (18 males and 43 females; mean age 31.82 years, SD = 11.20) completed the DTVMI and the FRTVMI. Spearman rho correlation coefficients were used to investigate whether each pair of the VMI test scores for each of the three participant age groups were associated.

The Spearman rho correlation coefficients between all three versions of the DTVMI and FRTVMI were statistically significant. For the child group, the correlation coefficient was rho = 0.70 (p<0.000), while the correlation between the VMI scores obtained by the adolescent group on the two tests was rho = 0.77 (p<0.000). For the adult participant group, the correlation coefficient between the DTVMI and the FRTVMI was rho = 0.70 (p<0.000).

The VMI scores obtained by the three participant age groups on the DTVMI and the FRTVMI were all significantly correlated with each other. Overall, the DTVMI and the FRTVMI exhibited large levels of convergent validity with each other, indicating that the two tests appear to measure similar visual-motor integration constructs.