Intuition in Occupational Therapists' Clinical Reasoning: A Scoping Review.

Most of the included studies came from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, so how therapists describe and use intuition in other countries is unknown. The whole literature on this topic is 22 articles and 8 of them are theoretical, so the four themes rest on a small and partly conceptual base rather than on studies of what therapists do. The empirical studies were small. Several involved fewer than ten therapists, and one followed a single therapist, so the themes are drawn from a narrow set of practitioners. The reviewers did not appraise the quality of the included studies. That is standard for a scoping review, but it means you cannot tell how strong any individual source behind a theme is. Occupational therapy assistants were excluded, on the grounds that they carry out decisions therapists make rather than making them independently. Only French and English articles were included, and grey literature was searched in two sources rather than the full range of repositories.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The only funding declared was from Équipe FUTUR, a research infrastructure funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (grant number 2020-NP-266176).

Do not read this as evidence that following your gut improves client outcomes. The review covers 22 mostly theoretical and small qualitative studies, judged the quality of none of them, and measured no patient outcome, so it cannot tell you whether intuition helps or harms. Its own message is narrower: intuition should sit alongside analytical reasoning, not replace it, and it is least trustworthy in situations unlike ones you have seen before.