Technology trends in practice: A survey of occupational therapy practitioners.

BACKGROUND: Given the evolving digital revolution, technology and digital tools are becoming inseparable from work and daily occupations. Occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) focus on supporting individuals in their desired and needed activities. Many of these daily activities (i.e., online banking, shopping, social media, smartphone use) require digital skills at a growing rate, and insufficient technological skills may subject individuals to limited engagement and social isolation. OBJECTIVE: To understand OTPs attitudes regarding technology utilization. METHODS: We surveyed 109 OTPs about their attitudes, work practices, and barriers to addressing their clients' digital technological functioning. RESULTS: The findings of our study suggest that while OTPs acknowledge the importance and potential benefit of technology for their clients, there is a notable professional gap in the training and skills of OTPs to support their clients' digital functioning effectively and to integrate technology into their practice. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to improve and expand OTP's digital skills and knowledge regarding addressing clients' digital functioning and technology implementation in occupational therapy practice.

Uncovering the Obstacles-A Typology of Environmental and Contextual Factors Affecting Occupational Participation: A Scoping Review.

IMPORTANCE: Environmental and contextual factors may facilitate or limit participation in daily activities. A detailed, systematic categorization of such factors enhances evaluation and intervention and promotes occupational engagement. OBJECTIVE: To develop an inclusive, detailed, and comprehensive typology of terms for environmental and contextual factors that affect occupational engagement and participation. DATA SOURCES: We searched the Avery Index of Architectural Periodicals, ERIC, EMBASE, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Engineering Village databases, using the keywords environment, factors, context, participation, people, disability, disabilities, aspects, barriers, assessment, and evaluation. STUDY SELECTION AND DATA COLLECTION: Using Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology, two reviewers screened and selected publications describing specific aspects of environmental and contextual factors that facilitate or diminish human occupational engagement or participation. FINDINGS: Forty-three articles and two book chapters published in English between 1997 and 2020 met the inclusion criteria. Terms extracted from this literature were iteratively screened and categorized. The resulting typology is organized into four areas with 12 categories and 53 specific terms. The typology's terms allow more fine-grained analysis of environmental factors described in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (4th ed.) and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This typology provides occupational therapy practitioners with detailed language to identify, assess, intervene with, and research environmental and contextual factors that affect participation and participation choices of individuals, groups, and populations. What This Article Adds: The typology provides a comprehensive terminology for occupational therapy professionals and students to use, assess, and intervene at the environmental and contextual levels, thereby facilitating participation for more people.

Scoping review of mentoring research in the occupational therapy literature, 2002-2018.

INTRODUCTION: Mentoring affords personalised learning for professional growth. Research across disciplines has shown mentoring to positively affect behaviour, attitude, motivation, job performance, organisational commitment, and career productivity and success. This study was conducted to provide an overview of research focussed on mentoring practices and related outcomes specific to the occupational therapy profession. METHODS: This study follows Arksey and O'Malley's five main scoping review stages. PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ERIC, Social Services Abstract, ScienceDirect and ProQuest databases were searched for mentoring practices in the occupational therapy profession. Inclusion criteria were: empirical studies of mentoring provided to occupational therapy students, practitioners, faculty and researchers, published in English between January 2002 and December 2018. Studies of mentoring provided to occupational therapy clients were excluded. Data were extracted for quantitative information about study characteristics and qualitative information about mentoring processes and outcomes. RESULTS: Of 1313 retrieved resources, 20 empirical studies were selected for analysis. In these studies, occupational therapy entry-level students, post-professional students, educators, researchers and clinicians were mentored in education, research and clinical areas of practice. Mentoring definitions, rationale, approaches and measurement methods were varied. Mentoring processes and relationships were facilitated by mechanisms of creating a plan, using mentoring strategies and providing support. Common defining terms, mechanisms and outcomes of mentoring were extracted and categorised into: support, learning, process and relationship. Mentoring outcomes were related to knowledge acquisition and translation, professional behaviours, increased productivity and professional networking. CONCLUSION: This scoping review presented commonalities of mentoring definitions, mechanisms and outcomes in empirically studied mentoring experiences and programmes in the occupational therapy profession. Methodological gaps in this research emphasise the need for occupational therapy practitioners and researchers to continue researching mentoring experiences by integrating theoretical frameworks, uniform definitions, rigorous design and standardised measures to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring.