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

Abstract

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.

Bringing sexuality out of the closet: What can we learn from occupational therapists who successfully address the area of sexuality in everyday practice?

“…Although specialist sexuality training and qualifications were not deemed essential, participants recognised that support and mentoring was valuable, even for experienced therapists. In accord with previous studies (Doyle et al, 2019;Eby et al, 2013), participants discussed how mentoring had helped them to improve confidence and accountability in their efforts to address sexuality, and to develop a sense of belonging or affiliation.…”

Mentoring New and Early-Stage Investigators and Underrepresented Minority Faculty for Research Success in Health-Related Fields: An Integrative Literature Review (2010–2020)

“…Presentation skills, related to public speaking and thinking on your feet, were also mentioned ( n = 4) [ 48 , 59 , 65 , 79 ]. Two technical skills mentioned less frequently by NI, ESI and UMF, but worth including as facilitators due to their impact on research success, are knowledge about responsible conduct of research [ 62 , 72 , 73 ] and content knowledge [ 54 , 72 ]. There were no technical facilitators to research success unique to any faculty category—all were consistently mentioned for NI, ESI and UMF.…”

“…Sixth, taken as a whole body of literature, only a handful of studies included and described a theoretical framework [ 41 , 44 , 48 , 69 , 77 ]. Literature reviews by Doyle et al [ 54 ] and Pfund et al [ 72 ] expressed the need for continuing to advance the theoretical framework for mentoring in the academy. As a seventh direction for future research, there is a need to standardize mentoring terminology and evaluation methods [ 54 , 72 , 74 , 89 ] and continue to examine the most important variables (e.g., mediators) for enhancing mentoring.…”

“…Literature reviews by Doyle et al [ 54 ] and Pfund et al [ 72 ] expressed the need for continuing to advance the theoretical framework for mentoring in the academy. As a seventh direction for future research, there is a need to standardize mentoring terminology and evaluation methods [ 54 , 72 , 74 , 89 ] and continue to examine the most important variables (e.g., mediators) for enhancing mentoring. For example, Thorpe et al [ 83 ] emphasized that there is a strong relationship between academic self-efficacy (i.e., grant writing self-efficacy) and academic success [ 47 ], but additional research is needed.…”

Potential language bias in systematic reviews on the use of coercion in psychiatry

“…The paper published by Bonding et al is not unique in terms of the bias that results from excluding all papers in languages other than English. There is a number of other recent reviews referring to topics of inpatient services that defined the inclusion criterion as 'limited to material published in English' (2)(3)(4), and the application of this criterion is not only found among authors from English-speaking countries (5). As to the paper by Bonding et al, the bias cannot be compensated by the authors' statement that a more exhaustive review should also include publications in other languages.…”