The Role of the Occupational Therapist in Disaster Areas: Systematic Review.
M Parente, M Tofani, R De Santis and 3 others
PMID 29097975WHAT IT FOUND
No disaster papers in this review had occupational therapy as the intervention.
Included studies pointed to rehabilitation teams after earthquakes, especially early response, evacuation planning, and safe mobilization.
Key findings
01The search yielded 10 articles, and all were about post-earthquake disaster management.
02No included article had occupational therapy as the central rehabilitation intervention.
03The included studies raised four themes: rehabilitation after disaster, early inclusion of a rehabilitation team, methods for difficult evacuation, and safest mobilization.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The search was limited to English-language MEDLINE records from January 2005 to September 2015. Only 10 articles met the inclusion criteria. All included articles concerned post-earthquake disasters, so findings may not apply to floods, conflicts, or industrial accidents. No included article had occupational therapy as the central intervention. Many studies were from low-resource settings such as Haiti, Pakistan, and rural China, where health and rehabilitation networks are not well developed. Data extraction was done by one reviewer and confirmed by another author.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that occupational therapy reduces complications or improves disaster outcomes. It found no included articles with occupational therapy as the central intervention, so the authors' conclusion is an expert recommendation, not a tested effect.