Occupational Therapists' Agreement in Screening Patients in General Psychiatric Care for Occupational Therapy
Abstract
The screening of psychiatric patients for occupational therapy service has traditionally relied on clinical experience, and the rational of the screening is seldom documented. The present study examines agreement among occupational therapists in judging need for occupational therapy for these patients on the basis of videotaped interviews. Occupational therapists (n = 38) working in general psychiatric wards saw videotaped interviews of 10 patients. Two different interview methods were used: a traditional occupational therapy interview and a semi-structured interview. After viewing each interview the occupational therapists had to decide whether to offer the patient occupational therapy treatment or not, or if he/she wanted more assessment information before making a decision. The agreement was high; the mean percentage agreement level of whether the occupational therapists should include or exlude patients from service was 81%. However, most of the occupational therapists wanted to offer occupational therapy to most of the patients. The type of interview method did not seem to influence the agreement levels nor did the number of years of clinical experience in the profession or the years of experience in psychiatric care.