The work of forensic occupational therapists in solitary confinement: An international survey.

Participants were recruited through the authors' own networks and by snowball sampling, so this is whoever the authors could reach. The study could not calculate a response rate, and 10 of the 44 surveys were only partly completed, so numbers for individual questions are often based on 25 to 37 people rather than 44. Half the participants worked in the United Kingdom, so this describes practice there more than it describes practice internationally. Therapists from Victoria, Australia, were excluded, which is the one region where this work has previously been studied. Including them might have changed the picture. The survey was in English only, so therapists with limited English may not have taken part. The authors did not collect whether participants worked in male, female or juvenile settings, or the ages of the patients they worked with. The survey ran in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, which the authors think may have reduced the number and spread of responses.

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The paper does not state who funded the study. Ethics approval was granted by the Australian Catholic University Human Research Ethics Committee.

Do not read this as evidence that occupational therapy works in solitary confinement. It reports what 44 therapists said they do, half of them working in the United Kingdom and recruited through the authors' own networks, and the authors themselves say more research is needed before there is evidence that these interventions are effective.