Educating occupational therapy students about psychiatric rehabilitation: A qualitative evaluation

Abstract

AbstractConcern about occupational therapy students' knowledge of and attitudes towards people with severe mental illness and their rehabilitation led to the development of a new course in the mental health curriculum. The course was designed to introduce the students to the philosophy, research and practices of psychiatric rehabilitation. The personal, instructional experience of using the training technology (learning and teaching modules) developed by the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Boston University in a 7‐week fourth year course, over a period of 3 years, is described. As well, a selection of the written perspectives of the students on their exposure to the philosophy of psychiatric rehabilitation, the requisite skills of practitioners and the learning package materials (reference workbooks and audiovisual aids) is provided to illustrate the benefits of this very brief introduction to psychiatric rehabilitation in a university classroom setting.