Occupational therapists' experiences of improvement work: a journey towards sustainable evidence-based practice

Abstract

The study shows how the collective use of an occupational therapy model of practice can lead to an integration of evidence-based knowledge that has long-lasting achievements in practice.

A process for developing sustainable evidence-based occupational therapy practice

“…With the support of the OTIPM, the occupational therapists over the years developed new routines to continuously question and critically review aspects of their practice, as well as routines to develop and update various kinds of documents that supported the improvements in occupational therapy services. These findings show, in accordance with a qualitative study of the experiences of the vast majority of the occupational therapists who conducted the present improvement work (36), that the full use of the OTIPM in the intervention process became sustainable in practice. Similarly, both studies also show that the use of the OTIPM facilitated the improvement work in itself becoming sustainable.…”

“…However, the access to different types of documents in the improvement work that confirmed each other strengthens the validity of the findings. In addition, the findings of this document study point in the same direction as a study of the experiences of the vast majority of the occupational therapists who conducted the present long-term improvement work (36). These two studies may therefore be seen as valuable complements to each other, which also strengthens the validity of the findings.…”

“…Consequently, to allow for future research that improves the understanding of how the micro processes in improvement works evolve and, also, the frictions within such a process, it will be important to take more detailed notes from each session of improvement works. Nevertheless, the qualitative study referred to above (36) gives glimpses into the challenges and the gains in the process of the present improvement work from the perspective of the occupational therapists involved. To ensure the trustworthiness (31) of the findings of the documents on the improvement work, this analysis was carried out jointly by two of the authors, one of whom was involved in the improvement work and the other who was not.…”

Occupational therapists’ perspectives on an evidence-based, client-centered assistive technology intervention

“…It is well known that improvement or implementation work is time consuming (Harvey and Kitson, 2015); however, the current study’s findings support the study by Sirkka et al (2014), in that both studies emphasize that improvement work saves time in the long run, in that all of the client’s needs are ascertained and addressed the first time, instead of on multiple occasions over a longer period of time. In addition, the occupational therapists in the current study also considered the time spent to be an investment in saving time and money in the long run.…”

Integrating Occupational Therapy Specific Assessments in Practice: Exploring Practitioner Experiences

“…The participant who said “I'd like to say that I don't have time, but actually if I wanted to make the time I could” reflects something of a dilemma in that the therapist shows a sense of awareness about something lacking in her practice and yet chooses not to prioritize what she considers best practice. Based upon the findings in this study, this phenomenon or trend is something that occupational therapists need to look more carefully at in order to improve possibilities for changing practices and for further work in the integration of research and clinical practice [ 6 , 32 ]. Although being beyond the scope of this paper, it can also be of interest for occupational therapists to look at implementation science as a way to facilitate the integration of best practices [ 33 ].…”