Hippotherapy concepts: A scoping review to inform transdisciplinary practice guidelines.

BACKGROUND: Hippotherapy, an equine-assisted service, uses the movement of the horse as a treatment tool. Hippotherapy is often used by occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language pathologists. To optimise hippotherapy and facilitate the development of transdisciplinary hippotherapy practise guidelines, this scoping review identified novel hippotherapy concepts used during hippotherapy interventions for clients with spastic cerebral palsy. AIM: To explore, identify, and describe concepts that constitute hippotherapy practices for clients with spastic cerebral palsy. METHODS: An exploratory descriptive qualitative research design, using Arksey and O'Malley's five stages of scoping review. RESULTS: We identified and tabulated 19 hippotherapy concepts. CONCLUSIONS: Hippotherapy is a complex intervention with multiple concepts. This review contributed to the development of hippotherapy practice guidelines for clients with spastic cerebral palsy. SIGNIFICANCE: Including hippotherapy concepts into hippotherapy practice will inform therapists, benefit clients, and contribute to future research.

Mapping the evidence on assessment of fitness to work at heights: a scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Falls from height are a leading cause of serious injury and fatality globally. In South Africa, work at heights is regulated by occupational health and safety legislation, which places responsibility on employers to ensure their workers are fit for high-risk work. There is however no formal procedure or consensus on how fitness to work at heights should be assessed. This paper presents an a priori protocol for a scoping review that seeks to identify and map the current evidence base around the assessment of fitness to work at heights. It forms the initial phase of a PhD study aimed at developing an interdisciplinary consensus statement for assessing fitness to work at heights in the South African construction industry. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping review framework and will be guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. An iterative search will be conducted in a selection of multidisciplinary databases including, Proquest Central, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, PsychINFO and Google Scholar. Thereafter, searches for grey literature will be performed in Google.com and websites of various national and international agencies, governing bodies and professional organisations with an interest in occupational health and work at heights. Where appropriate, targeted requests for clarification for further information will be undertaken with information sources. A descriptive qualitative content analysis of the results will be conducted and a level of evidence rating will be assigned to each study using the JBI approach. This will allow us to provide some commentary on the rigour of the existing evidence base. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval for the PhD study was granted by the Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, ethics reference number, 486/2021. Results of the scoping review will be submitted to a scientific journal for publication. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: This protocol is registered on the Open Science Framework at osf.io/yd5gw.

Assessing work speed using MODAPTS: A tool for occupational therapists.

BACKGROUND: The importance to be able to work is recognised as one of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. Occupational therapists working in vocational rehabilitation require cost effective, valid, and reliable tests that offer flexibility during the work evaluation process. The use of self-developed work samples standardized using Modular Arrangement of Predetermined Time Standards (MODAPTS) as an objective measure of work speed could meet this need. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the face, content, and criterion validity of MODAPTS work samples to assess work speed. METHODS: We conducted a quantitative cross-sectional, descriptive study. Occupational therapists completed electronic surveys to evaluate face and content validity. We evaluated criterion validity during a multiphase process that involved a realist synthesis, online survey, and comparing MODAPTS to Methods Time Management (MTM) time standards using three work samples that measured work speed. RESULTS: MODAPTS had good face validity for measuring work speed. We also confirmed the content and criterion validity of codes used to analyse basic movement and handling of smaller and larger articles as well as other body actions. CONCLUSION: MODAPTS demonstrated adequate face, content and criterion validity of tasks involving basic movements, handling of articles and other body actions.

A Reflexive Lens on Preparing and Conducting Semi-structured Interviews with Academic Colleagues.

In qualitative research, researchers often conduct semi-structured interviews with people familiar to them, but there are limited guidelines for researchers who conduct interviews to obtain curriculum-related information with academic colleagues who work in the same area of practice but at different higher education institutions. Using a pragmatic constructivist stance, we address the practicalities of conducting semi-structured interviews with fellow educators who work in the same area of professional practice, where the researcher has to address the dual roles of "insider" and "outsider" as well as that of researcher and participant. Interviewing academic colleagues offers a unique opportunity for rich data collection, but researchers should adopt a flexible conversational style during interviewing within research parameters and be acutely aware of their positionality and fluidity of roles. This article contributes to existing knowledge by drawing on the work of previous scholars in various areas of research and research methodology thereby offering a practical and theoretical perspective on conducting qualitative research interviewing in higher education institutions where the role of researcher and participant can become blurred. These guidelines and insights will also benefit researchers who conduct research with peers who work together in the same area of expertise, in similar contexts and with whom there are varying levels of working relationships.

Goal setting practices of occupational therapists in spinal cord injury rehabilitation in Gauteng, South Africa.

INTRODUCTION: Client-centered goal setting has multiple benefits in spinal rehabilitation. However, research has shown that many occupational therapists struggle to facilitate client-centered goal setting. South Africa presents unique challenges to client-centered goal setting, but no data is available on how it is applied. STUDY DESIGN: A qualitative research design following an appreciative inquiry stance was used. OBJECTIVE: To explore how occupational therapists implement and envision the goal setting practices in spinal rehabilitation. SETTING: Rehabilitation facilities in Gauteng, South Africa. METHODS: A focus group consisting of five occupational therapists working within spinal rehabilitation was held. An appreciative inquiry stance was used to determine current successes and future ideas on how to implement goal setting in a spinal rehabilitation setting. RESULTS: Data was analysed thematically using Braun and Clark. Themes were developed under each phase of appreciative inquiry. Discovery phase: Participants felt that current effective goal setting is therapist-directed and that client insight facilitates effective goal setting. Dream phase: Participants agreed that client-centered goal setting is the ideal. In addition, effective collaboration within the team and adequate resources were identified during the dream phase as ideals to effective goal setting practices. Design and Destination phase: Participants generated ideas on how to improve on team collaboration during goal setting and how to ensure goal setting is client-centered for effective goal setting in spinal rehabilitation to take place. CONCLUSIONS: The study emphasizes that for effective goal setting to occur, the process must remain client-centered. Essential to this process is collaboration between both the team and family members. Adequate resources and a low therapist-patient ratio supports effective goal setting.

Twelve tips for supervisors to move towards person-centered research supervision in health care sciences.

The research supervisory role is becoming increasingly complex due to issues such as diversity of students; mismatched expectations between the student, supervisor and higher education institution and shorter and specific time-bound research outcomes. The current postgraduate research supervision culture and supervision practices should change. Moving towards person-centered research supervision practices may enhance the research environment, as healthful relationships between supervisors and postgraduate students may lead to increased postgraduate research outcomes. Using a World Café, we critically reflected on our existing research supervision practices. All healthcare educators involved in postgraduate research supervision were purposively selected to participate. During the café, we explored and shared ideas in a safe space. Twelve tips emerged, which can be implemented to move existing supervision practices towards person-centered research supervision practices. We present these twelve tips from the perspective of the four constructs of person-centeredness as outlined by McCormack and McCance - pre-requisites, environment, process, and outcomes. The use of these tips may enable both supervisors and students to flourish. Avoiding routine, ritual supervision practices and embracing person-centredness, will enable supervisors to form healthful relationships and put the postgraduate student at the heart of our supervision practices.

Formulating a return-to-work decision for employees with major depressive disorders: occupational therapists' experiences.

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is worldwide one of the most concerning health problems as it is associated with reduced work productivity and permanent disability. Occupational therapists are often called upon to make a return-to-work decision on employees with MDD in order to facilitate continued employment. Sustaining employment is in alignment with achieving the Millennium Development Goal 1: Eradicating extreme poverty, as it is known that people suffering from mental health disorders are frequently denied employment opportunities leading to reduced financial resources and therefore possible poverty. AIM: This study described occupational therapists' experiences of formulating a return-to workdecision on employees with MDD. It formed part of a larger study. SETTING: Occupational therapists working in vocational rehabilitation or mental health in South Africa with a postgraduate qualification in vocational rehabilitation or mental health participated in the study. METHOD: A qualitative research design was used. Two separate focus groups explored 11 occupational therapists' experiences of formulating a return-to-work decision on employees with MDD. Ethics clearance number: S34/2007. RESULTS: Seven themes emerged, which were, (1) the biographical profile of the employee, (2) point of view of employer, (3) point of view of employee, (4) point of view of occupational therapist, (5) declaring the employee as temporary incapacitated, (6) declaring the employee as permanently incapacitated and (7) employee's level of motivation. CONCLUSION: Occupational therapists ought to have sound knowledge, skill, experience and the ability to collaborate with employees and employers in formulating a return-to-work decision.

Preparing for work practice: Under- and postgraduate student training at the University of Pretoria (South Africa).

South Africa has experienced much new legislation since the restoration of democracy in 1994 which has had widespread influences on education. Past and current teaching strategies of occupational therapy training at the University of Pretoria have included the training of students in vocational rehabilitation (or work practice). The influence of these new laws on training is discussed. An outline of the undergraduate and postgraduate modules presented at the University of Pretoria is presented in this paper. The authors wish to share the training of vocational rehabilitation with other educators as this training program seems to be very successful in South Africa.

Functional capacity evaluation: An essential component of South African occupational therapy work practice services.

South African occupational therapists have been involved in the delivery of work practice services since the inception of the profession in this country. Initial development in this area of practice appeared slow but following the acceptance of South Africa's first democratic Constitution in 1996, many opportunities for service delivery were facilitated by the implementation of disability equity legislation. One of the key services offered by practitioners is Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE). Although the outcomes of FCE are many, the process in essentially the same. This entails: referral, the initial interview, evaluation of performance components and ADL, vocational evaluation, obtaining collateral and the closure interview, the work visit, hypothesis testing and reporting. This article reports on the Functional Capacity Evaluation process as followed by South African occupational therapists in various contexts.