British Journal of Occupational Therapy

A review was undertaken of the College of Occupational Therapists' 2002 scoping study of occupational therapy research and development activity in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in order to assess the developments in infrastructure supporting occupational therapy research, to highlight opportunities available to occupational therapists and to identify how the College could best support members' research activities.

Within each nation, a literature review and focus group were undertaken. A feature of the research was the opportunity for a student occupational therapist from each country to be involved as co-researcher.

The findings revealed a considerable investment and increase in research capacity developments in all three countries, recognising the need to develop the evidence base to underpin occupational therapy interventions. Barriers to progressing research activity included time and research topic prioritisation, and workplace cultures that did not promote research-related activities. The College of Occupational Therapists was considered to have a key role in influencing policy directions and the launch of the United Kingdom Occupational Therapy Research Foundation was viewed as an opportunity to support occupation-focused research and capacity development.

Significant progress reflects the investment in research infrastructure, although further effort is needed to change cultural impacts.

Scholars have long examined educational approaches and teaching methods in occupational therapy, producing a wide range of educational scholarship. Yet the scope of the scholarship has not been systematically categorised and described, leaving the field without a baseline and guide for its educational science.

A systematic mapping review identified topics, research designs, levels of impact and themes across educational scholarship. Through comprehensive database searches and inclusion and exclusion coding, 129 articles published between 2000 and 2009 were studied. Data were collected using a data extraction tool modified from Best Evidence Medical Education, entered into Microsoft Access and analysed using queries.

Conceptual/descriptive papers (n = 76) represented the primary form of inquiry. Research papers (n = 53) used qualitative designs slightly more than quantitative or mixed methods. Educational interventions (n = 22) targeted students' skills, knowledge, attitudes and perceptions, but not their behaviours, organisational change or impact on clients. Prominent themes included integrative learning, learning paradigm, complexities of practice, student reasoning and calls for reforming occupational therapy education.

Priorities for educational research include deepen and diversify studies of local learning situations, develop profession-specific conceptual frameworks for learning and measure outcomes beyond student views of the learning activity.

The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate activities of daily living (ADL) functioning for clients in a forensic psychiatry evaluation unit and also to investigate the relationship between ADL functioning and awareness of their ability to perform ADL.

The sample consisted of 35 participants at a forensic psychiatry evaluation unit in Sweden. ADL was investigated using the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) and awareness of ability was investigated using the Assessment of Awareness of Ability (A³).

The ADL mean motor ability for the participants was 1.68 logits and the process ability showed an ADL mean value of 0.83 logit. The mean value of awareness was 0.60 logit. A majority of the participants demonstrated ability measures below the cut-off criteria in the AMPS, which indicates that they might need support to function in the community. There was also a significant relationship between awareness of ability and ADL motor ability (rho = 0.49, p<0.01) and ADL process ability (rho = 0.77, p<0.01).

Clients in forensic psychiatry demonstrate limited ability in ADL, associated with a limited awareness. Clients in forensic psychiatry may also need assistance to live in the community, which suggests that occupational therapy may be offered to these clients in order to prepare them to manage in the community.

Anxiety significantly affects children in middle childhood, impacting on functioning and predicting future mental health problems. Despite this, there is little literature describing occupational therapy for this population. This preliminary study evaluated the acceptability and outcomes of an occupation-based group for children with anxiety aged 10–14 years.

The group employed developmentally appropriate occupations to teach and participate in cognitive, behavioural and functional skills for managing anxiety. The five outcome measures used were the Beck Youth Inventories, Occupational Questionnaire, Child Behaviour Checklist, Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents, and Children's Global Assessment Scale. Acceptability was measured by attendance and outcome measures were taken at pre-group and post-group (n = 34). Data were examined using repeated measures t-tests.

All 34 participants completed the intervention, with 87.9% attendance. Parent-rated child anxiety decreased, as did clinician-rated factors inhibiting optimal functional performance, and clinician-rated overall child functioning increased. No significant changes in child-rated measures were reported.

Preliminary findings were that the occupation-based group for children with anxiety aged 10–14 years was an acceptable and beneficial intervention for reducing parent-rated and clinician-rated symptoms of anxiety while increasing functioning.

The future of occupational therapy is dependent on profession-specific knowledge to underpin its practice. This research explored occupational therapy students' perceptions of knowledge and their professional identity from one problem-based learning programme.

A qualitative methodology using in-depth interviews gathered data from 20 occupational therapy students in their final year of an undergraduate programme. The data were analysed thematically and in relation to theoretical constructs derived from the sociologists of education, Basil Bernstein and Karl Maton.

The students viewed occupational therapists as ‘knowers’ rather than as ‘knowledgeable’ therapists. This distinction is embedded in a professional identity grounded in the dispositions of the occupational therapist and the philosophical constructs that support occupational therapy, but not in the specialist knowledge of occupation.

The students' experiences suggest that the problem-based learning programme provides the transferable skills and philosophical constructs that allow them to practise in a diverse range of contemporary occupational therapy settings. However, simply mirroring current practice restricts professional advancement. The identity of the occupational therapist needs to embrace both a philosophical discourse and the specialist knowledge of occupation.