Building consensus on prescribing self-directed occupational therapy activities: A Delphi study.
Anna Joy, Alicia Devlin, Natasha A Lannin and 3 others
PMID 40484700WHAT IT FOUND
Australian occupational therapists agreed recommendations for prescribing self-practice, but the consensus came from 20 survey responses and 3 focus-group therapists.
These are expert recommendations, not tested interventions.
Key findings
01All 20 eligible occupational therapists reported prescribing self-practice during inpatient rehabilitation, on average to 55% of health-care consumers (range 17% to 100%).
02The 12 areas of self-practice included self-care, meal preparation, productivity, pressure care, computer-generated exercise programs, facility access, upper-limb exercises, scar management, assistive technology practice, energy conservation, functional mobility and relaxation.
03In Round 2, consensus was reached on 41 of 42 recommendations, and the recommendation to use self-practice to pass time or offer diversional therapy was excluded.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 20 eligible therapists completed the survey, and just 3 continued to the two focus groups, so the consensus recommendations rest on a very small group. The researchers could not determine a participation rate because recruitment used public directories, email, snowballing and social media. The study was conducted only with Australian occupational therapists, so terminology and scope of practice may not transfer to other countries. The recommendations are expert consensus, not tested interventions, and the study did not measure patient outcomes. Participants were asked to agree with literature statements, which may have made disagreement look non-evidence-based. The reasons participants stopped after Round 1 were unknown.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these recommendations as tested evidence that self-practice improves patient outcomes. The study reports expert agreement from 20 survey respondents and 3 focus-group participants, not a patient trial.