Occupational Therapy in Cancer Survivorship—A Toolkit for Stimulating Rapid-Research on the Neglected Domain of “Participation” during COVID-19

Siew Yim Loh

doi:10.4236/health.2021.136048

Abstract

COVID-19 has disrupted people’s occupational daily activities with detrimental impact on their daily living performances and quality of life. Occupational therapy contributes toward restoring health by remediating limitation in participation in meaningful occupation with lifestyle redesign interventions. However, the research gap on the area of “participation-limitation” for the field of Occupational Therapy in cancer survivorship during the COVID-19 is largely untapped and unknown. This commentary-review paper discussed the PEO-OT (person-environment-occupation) grid as a conceptual toolkit for stimulating research in the domain of occupational participation—an essential aspect in the field of occupational therapy, for cancer survivors. It applies the expertise finding from a large Delphi study on research priority in the fields and integrating these into evidenced methodology, to provide a structure to guide the novice researchers towards rapid reviews, by selecting evidence-based methods to ensure contextually-relevant enquiry to identify the “occupational-participation issues”—i.e., an emerging social determinant of health, affecting the daily self-management of cancer survivors with or without comorbidities.

Highlights

IntroductionPatients with one comorbidity (e.g., cardiovascular, diabetes, hepatitis B, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic kidney diseases, and cancer) had almost 80 percent higher need for intensive care, and the risk is 2.5 times more for those with more than one comorbidity [3]
The result of these cognitive deliberations using findings from research and established research methods, resulted in a PEO.occupational therapy (OT) Grid toolkit (Table 1) which served as a potential decision-aid tool to frame broad research questions, but focussed on issues related to Occupation therapy in cancer survivorship
The novice and limited novice researchers can build up the broad questions using the evidence-based tool such as PICO SPICE, PEO or SPIDER, ECLIPSE or CLIP

Summary

Introduction

Patients with one comorbidity (e.g., cardiovascular, diabetes, hepatitis B, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic kidney diseases, and cancer) had almost 80 percent higher need for intensive care, and the risk is 2.5 times more for those with more than one comorbidity [3]. China has 4.3 million (24 percent of world total) of new cancer cases [1], yet there are relatively few reports on impact among cancer survivors. The risk of getting ill from COVID-19 infection is higher in cancer patients due to their immunocompromised status from prolonged treatment [4] and from restricted follow-up due to the environmental barriers. Malaysia was amongst the countries that enforced strict movement control during COVID-19, with a complete lockdown restricting travel and commerce [5] [6], resulting in normal life being suspended for indefinite periods, causing much uncertainties-related emotions, finance and occupational distress. The International Labour Organisation have cautioned that 40 percent of the world’s population have no health insurance nor are able to access national health services resulting in debilitating consequences—where 100 million people fall into poverty due to health expenses [7]

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