OBJECTIVES To identify ethical dilemmas experienced by occupational and physical therapists working in the UK National Health Service (NHS). To compare ethical contexts, themes and principles across the two groups. DESIGN A structured questionnaire was circulated to the managers of occupational and physical therapy services in England and Wales. SUBJECTS The questionnaires were given to 238...

Burnout is a job-related condition involving feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1981a) is the instrument most widely used to measure job-related stress in human service professions, such as occupational therapy. This study explored the application of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for use wit...

Objectives: Clinical reasoning is at the heart of clinical work; it is affected by different field factors. A clear understanding of the reasoning process could solve practitioners' problems on how to make their underlying theories, assumptions and values more explicit. The aim of this research is to understand how clinical reasoning process is formed in the context of occupational therapists w...

Following the acceptance of South Africa’s first democratic constitution and subsequent Disability Equity legislation, publications in South African occupational therapy literature, although very limited, indicate that occupational therapists are ideally placed and uniquely skilled to deal with the implementation of legislation and to be key role players in the work place by facilitating employ...

Occupational therapists strive to be mindful, competent practitioners and continuously look for ways to improve practice. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has strong evidence of effectiveness in helping people with autism achieve goals, yet it does not seem to be implemented in occupational therapy practice. To better understand whether ABA could be an evidence-based option to expand occupationa...

Several articles on the developing specialty of hand therapy within occupational therapy were featured in the September 27, 1990, issue of OT Week. It was disturbing to read, however, that the American Society of Hand Therapists was founded in 1977 not to augment or promote occupational therapy's knowledge base or practice, but rather, to "foster the advancement of the profession of hand therap...

There has recently been a debate in the British occupational therapy literature as to the optimal type of casework for occupational therapists working in community mental health teams (Parker 2001, Corrigan 2002, Dunrose and Leeson 2002, Forsyth and Summerfield-Mann 2002, Harries 2002, Stone 2002). One of the issues of the debate is how much time should be given to generic casework and how much...

OBJECTIVE Clinical reasoning studies have acknowledged tacit aspects of practice, and recent research suggests that clinical reasoning contains intuition informed by tacit knowledge. Intuition also appears to be influenced by awareness and understanding of emotions. This study investigated the relationship between intuition and emotional intelligence among occupational therapists in mental heal...

OBJECTIVE This study was undertaken to explore the views of occupational therapists concerning their competences in health promotion, and their perceptions of how they apply these competences in their daily work. The study also elicited their views on the contributions that occupational therapists could make to health promotion if given the opportunity. METHODS Data were collected in five foc...

The purpose of this study was to describe typical practice in stroke rehabilitation based on selfreports of currently practicing occupational therapists and to determine if research evidence is a factor in treatment decisions. Two hundred and fifty surveys were sent to occupational therapists who were members of the Physical Disabilities Special Interest Section of the American Occupational The...