Occupational therapy practitioners have education, skills, and knowledge to provide occupational therapy interventions for adults living with serious mental illness. Evidence-based interventions demonstrate that occupational therapy practitioners can enable this population to engage in meaningful occupations, participate in community living, and contribute to society. Systematic review findings for occupational therapy interventions for adults living with serious mental illness were published in the September/October 2018 issue of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and in the Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Adults Living With Serious Mental Illness. Each article in the Evidence Connection series summarizes evidence from the published reviews on a given topic and presents an application of the evidence to a related clinical case. These articles illustrate how research evidence from the reviews can be used to inform and guide clinical decision making. Through a case story, this article illustrates how current evidence is applied for effective occupational therapy intervention with an adult living with serious mental illness.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health care practitioners’ primary focus has been on its physical consequences. Yet, the emotional strain of the pandemic exposed the mental health needs of survivors and society as a result of forced changes in occupational choices, habits, and roles. These forced changes caused a collective confusion, fear, loss, and grief. This column focuses on occupational therapy’s critical contributions to supporting society’s mental health and wellness. Occupational therapy has a unique opportunity to provide interventions to address population-wide mental health and wellness, targeted prevention of mental health concerns for people at risk, and intensive intervention for people with COVID-19–induced mental health diagnoses.

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Evidence Connection articles provide a clinical application of systematic reviews developed in conjunction with the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA’s) Evidence-Based Practice Program and illustrate how the research evidence from the reviews can be used to inform and guide clinical decision-making. Each article in this series summarizes evidence from published reviews on a given topic and presents the application of evidence to a related clinical case. In this Evidence Connection article, we describe a case report of a college-age student receiving supported education services and outline the occupational therapy evaluation and intervention that enhanced her academic engagement as well as her health and wellness. The findings from the systematic reviews on this topic were published in the September/October 2018 issue of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and in AOTA’s Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Adults Living With Serious Mental Illness.