A participatory action research in home care services: Towards occupational therapy practices fostering older adults’ social participation
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: To foster older adults’ social participation, occupational therapists can provide community-based services ranging from individual to population level. However, their current practice in homecare rarely addresses social participation, which illustrates the importance of supporting such change in their practice. This study aimed to remodel community occupational therapy services by: 1) identifying practices to integrate to foster older adults’ social participation, 2) exploring factors that could influence their integration, and 3) identifying actions to leverage to integrate these practices in homecare. A community-based participatory research partnership involved a steering committee with 12 stakeholders from a local community homecare setting in Montréal (Québec). Four focus groups meetings and seven individual interviews with 28 key informants were transcribed and analyzed. Key informants identified a continuum of emerging interventions, including personalised interventions, group-based interventions and community development interventions. The integration of these practices was influenced by enablers, such as clinical support, partnerships and communication as well as user involvement. However, this integration is hindered by organizational and systemic barriers, such as institutional culture and performance indicators. Finally, different levers of action were identified, including involving citizens in developing new performance indicators, creating partnerships with community organizations and supporting occupational therapists’ change agent role to modify their practice. This research led to co-design a continuum of emerging occupational therapy interventions and reflected with key stakeholders on possible factors affecting the integration of these practices. Based on a fruitful research-practice partnership, the next steps of this participatory research will aim at implementing these promising initiatives.
Author: Turcotte, Pier-Luc
Institution: Université de Sherbrooke
Language: English
Subfield: Occupational Therapy
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7201937570