Occupational therapy in pain management: An exploration and description of current UK practice.
Rebecca Slee, Alison Warren, Miriam Noonan and 1 others
PMID 40337114WHAT IT FOUND
UK occupational therapists in chronic pain practice described their role as holistic and biopsychosocial.
They focused on meaningful occupations and involved family supporters. Barriers included staff shortages, limited multidisciplinary team inclusion, unclear role, and low pre-registration chronic pain education.
Key findings
0126 occupational therapists responded to a survey about their current practice.
02Respondents said their holistic, biopsychosocial training positions them to focus on meaningful occupation and involve friends, family and supporters.
03Reported barriers were staff shortages, not always being part of multidisciplinary teams, limited understanding of occupational therapy, and service users’ ability or readiness to engage.
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
The sample was small, with 26 respondents, online and self-selected, so it may not represent all UK occupational therapists working in chronic pain. Some questions were optional, so response numbers varied across items. The survey did not capture details of non-standardised assessments used in practice. The sample was homogeneous, with most respondents identifying as white and female. It describes therapists’ reports and perceptions, not patient outcomes or treatment effectiveness.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and no financial support for the research, authorship or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported interventions as evidence that occupational therapy improves chronic pain outcomes. The survey describes what therapists said they do, not patient outcomes.