OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Research for occupational therapy

Papers an occupational therapist can act on, across daily living, mental health, hand therapy, paediatrics and rehabilitation, each read in full rather than from its abstract.

10,853 PAPERS · PAGE 206 OF 218 · NEWEST FIRST

• PTOTSurvey2026Health Functioning Moderates the Association Between Chronic Conditions and Mental Illness in Childhood.Child: care, health and developmentChildren with a chronic condition were more than twice as likely to have a mood disorder, but not other mental illnesses. The link to anxiety, ADHD and any mental illness appeared only in children with better health functioning.
• OTQualitative2026What Tools, Technology and Techniques Enable Participation in an eMaking Program for People With Intellectual Disabilities?Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDStaff who run eMaking sessions for adults with intellectual disabilities say participation depends less on the technology than on how it is taught: tailored to the person's interests, demonstrated step by step, in short bursts, with equipment adapted so they can do it themselves.
• OTSystematic Review2026Art Group Interventions for Children With Learning Differences: A Systematic Review.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthArt groups for children with learning differences show trends toward fewer hyperactive and impulsive behaviours and better self-expression, but most of these findings were not conclusive and came from weak studies. What goes into the session matters more than how long it runs.
• OTSLPOther2026"Disconnected From Everyone and Everything Around Them": A Mixed Method Study to Explore the Perspectives of Children With Language Difficulties and Their Caregivers On Mental Health Concerns and Mental Health Support.International journal of language & communication disordersMost of 120 caregivers of children with language difficulties (91%) had worried about their child's mental health, mainly anxiety, self-esteem and friendships, but 65% said their child had never had formal mental health support. Talk-based therapy was described as a poor fit.
• OTSurvey2025Sensory Processing Patterns in People With Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthAdults with upper-limb CRPS described their senses working differently from most people's: high sensitivity to sensation and strong avoidance of it, with those under 65 also saying they miss more sensory input than most. A one-time survey, so patterns, not causes or treatments.
• OTQualitative2025Supporting Students in Relation to Racism: Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Educator Perspectives.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieRacism is a constant in the workplaces these nine Manitoba OT educators send students into, from service users, colleagues and the way services run. They teach by open dialogue and reflection, but were mostly self-taught and did not know where to get students support.
• OTSurvey2025The role of uncertainty in earthquake fear and well-being among seafarers.Work (Reading, Mass.)Fear of earthquakes went with lower mental well-being in 357 Turkish seafarers, but the link ran through how badly they tolerated uncertainty. Once that was accounted for, earthquake fear alone no longer predicted well-being.
• OTSurvey2025Teacher-school fit, job satisfaction, participation in decision-making, and psychological ownership as predictors of organizational ostracism among primary school teachers.Work (Reading, Mass.)Teachers who felt they fitted their school reported less exclusion at work, but the direct link was not significant. The effect ran indirectly, through job satisfaction and psychological ownership, or through job satisfaction and participation in decision-making.
• OTSystematic Review2026Screening Fitness to Drive After Stroke Across Demographic Subgroups: A Systematic Review.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthThe screening tests rated most useful for judging fitness to drive after stroke, the SDSA and Trail Making Test-B, were validated mainly in older men from high-income countries. Only 21% of participants were female.
• OTQualitative2026Exploring the Influence of LGBTQ+ and Religious Attitudes in Sexual Health Education for College Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDStudents with intellectual disabilities who'd had sexual health education could name their sexual orientation and gender identity; those without it did not know the terms. Religion shaped some students' attitudes, not others, and three women said they needed a parent's permission to be sexual.
• OTSystematic Review2026Loneliness and Its Associated Factors in Individuals With Intellectual Disability and Borderline Intellectual Functioning: A Systematic Review.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDLoneliness is common in adults with intellectual disability: a weighted average of 41.70% across 40 studies, above general-population figures. Being single, in poor health, on low income, unemployed, living alone or in an institution, and having few friendships were the factors most consistently linked.
• PTOTSystematic Review2026Mapping the Evidence on Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Individuals Experiencing Disability: A Scoping Review.American journal of physical medicine & rehabilitationThe evidence on heart attack and stroke risk in people with physical disabilities is sparse and too varied to guide practice. Most of the 38 studies were retrospective database studies from the US and East Asia, and stroke was the most studied outcome.
• PTOTOther2026Digital Platform to Provide Health Data Feedback for Neurorehabilitation Patients: User-Centered Development and Proof-of-Concept Usability Study.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesBoth patients and therapists preferred progress bars and color-coded summaries over text or spider plots when shown rehabilitation results in a co-designed app, and rated its usability highly (93.6 and 80.9 out of 100). It used fabricated data, so no clinical benefit is shown.
• OTSurvey2025Evaluation of the impact of COVID-19 on the occupational burnout among shift workers in Hong Kong.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOT39.4% of the 538 Hong Kong shift workers surveyed met the criteria for burnout during COVID-19. Working more than 24 shifts a month, 9 to 15 night shifts a month, and having been infected twice were all linked to higher odds.
• OTSurvey2025Determinants of the number of ATDs used by community-dwelling people recovering from stroke with mild cognitive impairments: A path analysis.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTIn 196 community-dwelling stroke survivors with normal to mild cognitive impairment, being older, more anxious, or more involved in daily activities went with using more assistive devices. Cognition did not predict how many devices someone used.
• OTCohort2025Exploring sense of coherence (SOC) in relation to working conditions for employees with hearing loss.Work (Reading, Mass.)Employees with hearing loss who were in work rated their work situation as more understandable, manageable and worthwhile than those who had taken hearing-related sick leave. Listening devices and adjustments at work were not linked to these ratings.
• OTOther2025The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the experiences of Nova Scotian dentists.Work (Reading, Mass.)Nova Scotian dentists described months with no income and masks and shields that made it hard to see and breathe. Returning to patients and colleagues was what kept them motivated. A follow-up survey found 84% reported more grinding and 79% more broken teeth.
• OTSurvey2025The effect of the information systems literacy of emergency health employees on their technology acceptance levels.Work (Reading, Mass.)Emergency ambulance staff who rated their information-systems skills higher also rated the new digital record-keeping as easier and more useful to use. Staff who had been trained on digital health records scored higher on both. This is a survey, so it shows association, not cause.
• OTSurvey2026Overlapping And Differentiating Clinical Features of Autism and Borderline Personality Disorder in Women and People Assigned Female at Birth: A Cross-Sectional Study.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic women and people assigned female at birth scored higher on sensory and social differences, sameness and camouflaging. Those meeting BPD criteria scored higher on identity disturbance, distress when alone and impulsivity. Difficulty identifying emotions was the one thing both groups shared.
• OTSLPCohort2026Predictors of Parent Engagement in Part C Early Intervention for Autism: The Role of Single Parenthood and Initial Motivation.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceSingle parents took a less active part in early intervention sessions than parents living with a partner, and parents who started more motivated practiced at home more often. Nothing measured predicted attendance, and the engagement measures did not track together.
• OTQualitative2026Grief, Relief, and Belief: A Social Media Study on Late Identification of Neurodivergence.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAdults diagnosed late with autism or ADHD described grief for the years and support they missed and for their younger selves, alongside relief and gratitude at finally understanding themselves. Many also described burnout after assessment, made worse by little support afterwards.
• PTOTCohort2026Everyday positioning experience in typically developing infants and infants with or at risk for cerebral palsy.Research in developmental disabilitiesInfants with or at risk for CP spent more of the day on their back and much less standing than typically developing peers: at 12 months, 40% versus 14% of the day supine, and 8% versus 29% standing. Motor milestone delays did not explain it.
• OTMeta-Analysis2026Adaptive Interventions for Enhancing Participation Poststroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieAcross 24 randomised trials, adaptive goal-focused stroke programmes did not clearly improve participation. The one positive result was for everyday household activities in self-management style programmes. That was a secondary outcome.
• OTCohort2025Descriptive evaluation of community based children's occupational therapy services using COPM.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTParents rated children's performance and satisfaction higher after community occupational therapy, with mean performance rising from 3.6 to 6.7 and satisfaction from 3.8 to 7.3 on a ten-point scale. More sessions did not mean more improvement, and there was no control group.
• PTOTOther2025Factors influencing return to work after rotator cuff surgery: A scoping review.Work (Reading, Mass.)80.72% of workers returned to work after rotator cuff surgery, on average 6.2 months later, across 21 studies. Heavy manual work predicted lower and slower return; lighter duties predicted faster return. No single factor decided the outcome.
• OTOther2026Shattering Silence, Inviting Dialogue: Anti-Oppressive Occupational Therapy During the Genocide of Palestinians.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieThere is no study here and no result to act on. The authors argue that occupational therapy bodies in Canada met the genocide of Palestinians with silence, and that staying neutral in the face of injustice is itself oppressive.
• OTSurvey2026Associations Between Autism and Self-Reported Dimensions of Interoception.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAdults with an autism diagnosis rated their bodily signals more negatively than non-autistic adults (70.8 vs 60.1), but did not differ in how accurately or often they noticed them. Higher autistic traits in the general sample went with lower accuracy and higher attention.
• PTOTCohort2026Early post-hospital trajectories of health-related quality of life for younger adult patients with traumatic brain injury.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationMental quality of life did not improve over 8 weeks after hospital discharge for traumatic brain injury. Physical quality of life did improve, from 30.5 to 34.8 out of 100, still below the 43 to 47 the scale treats as low quality of life.
• OTQualitative2025Job crafting motives and strategies to increase work-related well-being among healthcare employees.Work (Reading, Mass.)Healthcare staff reshaped their jobs for four reasons: to develop, to contribute to a common good, to make work meaningful, and to keep the day manageable. Some deliberately crafted less, or not at all, to protect their energy.
• OTPilot2025Testing the feasibility of 30 min of daily outdoor office work for stress management: A pilot study.Work (Reading, Mass.)Eight office workers rated their stress lower during a week with at least 30 minutes of outdoor work each day (mean 4.42 versus 3.74), but the non-parametric test found no significant difference and only eight people took part.
• OTCohort2026Time to Medication Initiation in School-age Children With ADHD in Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBPAbout 59% of school-age children diagnosed with ADHD in developmental-behavioral clinics were prescribed medication within a year, with a median wait of 4 days. Children waited longer if a psychologist diagnosed them, if they were Asian, or if they had co-occurring conditions.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2026Delivering Health Education to Children With Chronic Conditions: A Scoping Review and Evidence and Gap Map.Child: care, health and developmentOnly 16 of 118 studies of health education for children with chronic conditions described any adaptation for children with disabilities, mostly for cognition. Most education taught disease facts face to face in hospital clinics, and few programmes were individualised or designed with children.
• OTQualitative2025The potential of place-based occupational therapy to support aging-in-place: A qualitative study.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTThe seven therapists said placing occupational therapy in the client's own neighbourhood, using the streets and shops they already walk, could fill the gap between hospital discharge and day rehabilitation and keep caregivers involved. All said subsidies and hospital endorsement would decide whether it happens.
• OTSurvey2026Occupational Therapy for Children With DCD and Academic Difficulties: A Pan-Canadian Survey.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieAlmost every Canadian OT surveyed (99%) assessed academic activities in children with DCD, but handwriting dominated (96% assessed, 85% treated), ahead of writing, maths and reading, even though maths difficulties affect up to 90%.
• OTCase-Control2026Event- and Time-Based Prospective Memory and Time Perception in Autistic Adults With and Without Intellectual Disabilities.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults were worse on a game testing whether they remembered to do things, but the gap disappeared once the groups' different vocabulary scores were taken into account. Judging how many minutes had passed during the session was where they stayed less accurate.
• OTOther2026Analyzing sentiment shifts in news coverage of occupational accidents: A case study of the Amasra mining disaster in Türkiye.Work (Reading, Mass.)No clinical finding. This analyses how the emotional tone of news coverage of a coal mine disaster changed over time. No patients, no treatment and no health outcome were studied.
• OTQualitative2026Residential Transitions in Supported Living: Experiences of Adults With Intellectual Disabilities and Parents.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDAdults with intellectual disabilities and their parents described years of uncertain waiting with little real choice, then a fast move and a long settling-in where staff rules governed daily life. Parents felt sidelined but still carried the burden.
• PTOTSystematic Review2026Do Leg-Focused Exercises Improve Arm and Hand Function for Individuals With Neurologic Disorders? A Scoping Review.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationLeg training came with better arm and hand function in half of 12 small studies; the other half found no change, and none found harm. Almost none of the studies actually tested this, so it is a research question, not a treatment.
• OTSurvey2026Navigating Cognitive Screening and Service Delivery for Sensory Impairment in Occupational Therapy.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieOccupational therapists adapted cognitive screening most for clients who are hard of hearing, less for vision impairment, and least for dual sensory impairment, where nine of 90 made no adaptation. Satisfaction was lowest for dual sensory impairment.
• OTQualitative2026The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Preschoolers With Disabilities: Occupational Therapists' Perspectives.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieMost of the 11 Canadian occupational therapists had never heard of the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines. Once shown them, they saw the advice as fitting their role, but called the daily hourly targets too rigid for children with disabilities and wanted a flexible resource.
• PTOTQualitative2026Life after the hospital: Lived experience of people with traumatic spinal cord injury in a resource-constrained setting - a qualitative study.The South African journal of physiotherapyFor these 19 Rwandans with spinal cord injury, losing income and their sense of value shaped daily life. Family support and contact with others with the same injury helped; inaccessible homes, ill-fitting donated wheelchairs and public attitudes kept people out.
• OTSystematic Review2026School and School-Related Experiences of Children and Adolescents With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Scoping Review.Child: care, health and developmentChildren with IBD miss more school than healthy peers: 24 days for Crohn's disease and 21 for colitis in one French sample, against 5.1 for controls. Symptoms and hospital appointments drive most of it. Grades were largely unaffected; school support and social life were not.
• OTOther2025Evaluating the changes in attitudes towards mental illness and physical disabilities after an anti-stigma course for occupational therapy students.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTStudents who chose an anti-stigma course with community contact and role-play reported less stigma towards physical disability afterwards than students in a sociology class, whose attitudes got worse. Both groups stayed more reluctant about mental illness than physical disability.
• OTSystematic Review2025Establishing Therapeutic Relationships with Immigrant Families of Disabled Children: A Scoping Review.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieTherapists and immigrant families built trust through practical communication and collaboration, not through named cultural frameworks. Bilingual staff, interpreters, home visits, cultural brokers and shared goal-setting mattered most. Most strategies were therapist-led, which can keep families cast as the 'other'.
• OTQualitative2026Prescribing Assistive Technology for Cognition to Support Aging in Place: OTs' Perspective.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieOccupational therapists prescribe cognitive assistive technology mainly for complex, multi-step tasks like medication management, and when they judge the client still has procedural memory to learn it. Late referrals, clients who do not see their own limits, and absent family caregivers hold them back.
• PTOTMeta-Analysis2026Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Interventions on Participation in Children and Adolescents With Unilateral Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationAround 840 children and teenagers with one-sided cerebral palsy improved on participation measures after rehabilitation, but no study compared therapy with no treatment, and no single therapy beat another.
• PTOTSLPOther2026Associations Between Comorbidities, Developmental Status, and Disease Severity in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study in China.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn this Chinese cohort, 96.6% of 1279 autistic children had at least one other diagnosed condition: 87.3% intellectual or developmental disability, 45.3% food refusal, 16.9% insomnia. Children with these conditions tended to score higher for autism severity.
• OTSurvey2026Occurrence and Correlates of Suicidal Thoughts Among Young Autistic Users of a Mental Health App.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchNearly two thirds of young autistic people using a UK mental health app reported suicidal thoughts, and it was as common at 11 to 13 as in the older users. Depression, self-harm, physical abuse and a gender minority identity went with higher rates; using the term neurodiversity themselves went with lower ones.
• OTSystematic Review2026Scoping Review: Culturally Appropriate Care for Arab Elders in Long-Term Care Settings.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthNo study has yet looked at culturally appropriate care for migrant Arab Elders in residential aged care homes. The 13 papers found cover culturally and linguistically diverse residents broadly, and the reviewers point to co-design with Elders and families as the untested next step.
• OTOther2026Understanding the Impact of Screening Location on Depressive Symptom Scores Among People With Spinal Cord Injury.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationTotal depression scores did not differ significantly between people with new spinal cord injuries screened at home and in hospital (median 7.5 vs 6 on a 0-27 scale). Emotional symptoms and suicidal thoughts were more common at home.