Awareness of Occupational Therapy among Post-Graduate Resident Doctors and Speciality Medical Officers in Tertiary Healthcare Centre

Abstract

Occupational Therapy (OT) is an essential speciality in healthcare system that aims to maximize people’sfunctional abilities and performance. Knowledge about OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY among healthcareprofessionals is essential for the delivery of quality care services. Since Occupational Therapy is not awell understood profession, this survey represents assessment of awareness of Occupational Therapyamong Post Graduate Residents (PG) and Speciality Medical Officer (SMO) in a tertiary health carecenter in Mumbai. In this survey there were 145 participants from various specialties and who haveOccupational Therapy as a part of patient management team in the hospital. All participants completed aquestionnaire regarding awareness and knowledge of Occupational Therapy containing 16 questions. Theresults revealed that 78.55% had distinctive awareness about Occupational Therapy, 18.75% had average& 2.7% had poor awareness of Occupational Therapy. Maximum awareness was found in departmentsof General Medicine&Psychiatry (79%), while poor awareness was found in department of Obstetrics &Gynecology (51%). The preliminary findings suggest that Most participants perceived that OccupationalTherapy domain of practice only includes orthopaedics, mental health, hand rehabilitation and adult andpaediatric neurology while overlooking the areas of wellness and gerontology. Such a result reflects lackof communication channels between Occupational Therapists and other healthcare professionals which canrestrict interdisciplinary work. Therefore, more interprofessional interactions and collaborative activitiesneeds to be incorporated within the curriculum and placements of all healthcare professionals.