Occupational Therapy in an intermediate care service

Impact of occupational therapy in an integrated adult social care service: Audit of Therapy Outcome Measure Findings

Journal of Integrated Care ◽

10.1108/jica-04-2021-0020 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Sharon J. Davenport

Keyword(s):

Occupational Therapy ◽

Social Care ◽

Outcome Measure ◽

Care Service ◽

Data Gathering ◽

Sampling Bias ◽

Therapy Outcome ◽

Social Care Service ◽

Content Type ◽

Health And Social Care

PurposeHealth and social care services should demonstrate the quality of their interventions for commissioners, patients and carers, plus it is a requirement for occupational therapists to measure and record outcomes. Use of the “Therapy Outcome Measure” (TOMs) standardised tool was implemented by an occupational therapy adult social care service to demonstrate outcomes from April 2020, following integration to a community NHS Trust.Design/methodology/approachThe aim was to demonstrate occupational therapy outcomes in adult social care through a local audit of the TOMs. The objective was to determine if clients improved following occupational therapy intervention in the four domains of impairment, activity, participation and wellbeing/carer wellbeing. 70 cases were purposively sampled over a 2-month timeframe, extracting data from the local electronic recording system.FindingsOccupational therapy in adult social care clearly makes an impact with their client group and carers. Evidence from the dataset demonstrates clinically significant change, as 93% of clients seen by adult social care occupational therapy staff showed an improvement in at least one TOMs domain during their whole episode of care. 79% of activity scores, 20% of participation scores and 50% of wellbeing scores improved following intervention. 79% of carer wellbeing scores improved following occupational therapy.Research limitations/implicationsThe audit did not collect data on uptake from the separate teams (equipment, housing, STAR and adult social care work) in occupational therapy adult social care. Potential sampling bias occurred as cases with completed scores only were purposively sampled. Sampling was not random which prevented data gathering on uptake of TOMs across the separate teams. Additionally, the audit results can only be applied to the setting from which the data was collected, so has limited external validity.Originality/valueThese novel findings illustrate the valuable and unique impact of occupational therapy in this adult social care setting. The integration of adult social care into an NHS Community Trust has supported the service to measure outcomes, by utilising the same standardised tool in use by allied health professions across the Trust.

Download Full-text

Single-System Design: An Effective Strategy for Evaluating Clinical Change

British Journal of Occupational Therapy ◽

10.1177/030802260006300607 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 63 (6) ◽

pp. 283-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anjali S Joshi

Keyword(s):

Occupational Therapy ◽

System Design ◽

Quantitative Research ◽

Care Service ◽

Health Care Service ◽

Single Subject ◽

Single System ◽

System Research ◽

Integrative Therapy ◽

Single Subject Research

Documentation and research are two essential factors for the growth of any profession and, therefore, have priority in occupational therapy. Documentation is the key to the communication of the clinical services rendered by the occupational therapist to clients and to other members of the professional team (Gillette 1982, Ottenbacher and York 1984). Single-system research, sometimes referred to as single-subject research, is a quantitative research method. In single-system research, the efficacy of a certain intervention can be evaluated in a systematic way by studying one subject in a single setting (Ottenbacher 1984). A therapist can make use of any therapeutic technique to work in a single-system design. Gillette (1982, p499) stated: ‘Each occupational therapy clinic is a virtually untouched laboratory, a storehouse of evidence that, properly recorded, analysed and published, would serve to confirm the value of occupational therapy as a health care service.’ This article describes the application of single-system design in a clinical setting. The client discussed was treated using sensory integrative therapy. The purpose of this article is to show how a selected behaviour can be recorded and measured effectively using a single-system design.

Download Full-text