No abstract

Based on a questionnaire survey of all occupational therapists employed in the Western Health and Social Services Board, Northern Ireland, the study highlighted a number of factors which contribute to the acknowledged problems of recruitment and retention. Fundamental to occupational therapists staying in post is their degree of satisfaction with the job. The survey established four specific factors of job satisfaction: multiprofessional teamwork, adequate staffing, further training/retraining and involvement in decision making. Reasons for leaving and deterrents from applying for jobs were viewed together as factors which take or keep occupational therapists out of posts. High weightings were given to lack of resources, unrealistic workload, personal reasons and lack of professional status. The attractive features of occupational therapy that were noted included variety of the work, good working relationships and the challenge of the job.

In this work, the position is taken that practice is a knowledge-rich domain where knowledge use and knowledge creation intertwine. This article presents a learning-in-practice model of occupational therapy which anchors occupational therapy theory within the reality of occupational therapy practice, identifying theory and practice as one entity. The model takes issue with the theory/practice paradigm of practical professions and suggests that, in occupational therapy, the real world situation of practice and clients' life-world contexts are the most fitting frames of reference for practitioners. The model, arising from the thesis ‘Occupational therapy: perspectives on the effectiveness of practice’ (Jenkins, 1994), implies that professional effectiveness is not dependent only on the concept of reflection in and on action as espoused by Schön (1987) but, in effect, hinges on a ‘community of practice’ wherein learning is situated, ongoing and continuous and occurs in action, in discussion and in periods of personal reflection, purposively and incidentally. Part 1 introduced the work and described Lave's and Wenger's Situated Learning Perspective, from which this practice model is derived; the model's four basic constituents – community, context, access and language – were presented. Part 2 identifies these in the occupational therapy setting and forwards the notion that the model is the kernel of democratic professionalism.

SUMMARY Sera from 1258 individuals have been tested by four laboratories for rubella antibody by both the haemagglutination-inhibition and single radial haemolysis techniques. There was good agreement between the results obtained by the two methods. Although sheep red blood cells were used in the single radial haemolysis plates, no problems were encountered with sera from patients with infectious mononucleosis.The single radial haemolysis technique was found to be simple, convenient, and reliable, and suited to the rapid screening of large numbers of sera to assess susceptibility to rubella in the context of a vaccination campaign. However, since the technique does not detect anti-rubella IgM, it should not be used as the only test to investigate suspected recent infection.The haemagglutination-inhibition (HAI) test is at present the one most widely used for detecting antibodies to rubella virus. However, this test is laborious and time-consuming to perform: sera must be pretreated to remove non-specific inhibitors; they may require absorption to remove red cell agglutinins; and they must be individually diluted. In addition, the test involves a large number of variables which can give rise to poor reproducibility (Gust et al., 1973).The single radial haemolysis (SRH) technique was first developed to detect and measure influenza antibody (Russell et al., 1975;Schild et al., 1975) and, because of its simplicity, accuracy, and reproducibility, has now been used for detecting antibodies against rubella virus.We here report an evaluation of the SRH technique as a replacement for the HAI test in the routine screening of large numbers of sera for rubella antibody. Sera were examined undiluted. A 10-,ul volume of test serum was added to each well and allowed to diffuse through the gel overnight at 40C. The gels were then flooded with a 1:10 dilution of guinea-pig complement (Wellcome Reagents Ltd) and incubated in a humidified atmosphere at 370C for three hours.Plates were examined immediately or fixed in 10% formol saline. The diameters of the zones of haemolysis were then measured, and the corresponding annulus areas were calculated (total area minus area of well).Since some human sera contain sufficient antisheep red blood cell antibody to produce a very small zone of lysis, sera were defined as SRHpositive only if the area of lysis exceeded 5 mm2, that is, the lysis extended more than 0-5 mm from the edge of the well.

In this work, the position is taken that practice is a knowledge-rich domain where knowledge use and knowledge creation intertwine. This article presents a learning-in-practice model of occupational therapy which anchors occupational therapy theory within the reality of occupational therapy practice, identifying theory and practice as one entity. The model takes issue with the theory/practice paradigm of practical professions and suggests that, in occupational therapy, the real world situation of practice and clients' life-world contexts are the most fitting frames of reference for practitioners. The model, arising from the thesis ‘Occupational therapy: perspectives on the effectiveness of practice’ (Jenkins, 1994), implies that professional effectiveness is not dependent only on the concept of reflection in and on action as espoused by Schön (1987) but, in effect, hinges on a ‘community of practice’ wherein learning is situated, ongoing and continuous and occurs In action, in discussion and In periods of personal reflection, purposively and Incidentally. Part 1 Introduces the work and describes Lave's and Wenger's Situated Learning Perspective, from which this practice model is derived; the model's four basic constituents – community, context, access and language – are presented. Part 2 will identify these in the occupational therapy setting and will forward the notion that the model is the kernel of democratic professionalism.