Occupational Performance in the Discipline of Occupational Therapy During COVID-19 at a Public University in KwaZulu-Natal.
N Ndaba, P Govender, D Naidoo
PMID 39886653WHAT IT FOUND
Occupational therapy educators and students described pandemic online learning as stressful, isolating and inequitable.
Poor home connectivity, inadequate support, and management decisions without student input harmed learning. Clinical training gaps were feared, while digital skills and open-book assessments were adapted.
Key findings
01Educators reported elevated stress, fear, and feeling overwhelmed by rapid changes to teaching methods and strategies.
02Students' home environments, connectivity and socioeconomic barriers limited access to learning resources and participation.
03Educators and clinical supervisors feared gaps in students' clinical reasoning, assessment and intervention skills because clinical exposure was limited.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This study was done at a lower-resourced public university in South Africa, so its themes may not fit other institutions or contexts. The participants were purposively selected, not randomly sampled, so the findings may not represent all students, educators, clinical supervisors or managers. The study reports experiences and perceptions about education; it does not measure whether any adaptation improved student competence, clinical skills, or patient care. The analysis uses thematic interpretation of interviews, so the relative weight of each theme is not quantified and may depend on the researchers' coding decisions.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these themes as proof that online teaching or telehealth improved occupational therapy education. The study reports participants' perceptions at a South African university during the pandemic, and it did not measure graduate competence or patient outcomes.