our last OTalk of 2019 is being hosted by Marcus Dean @MarcusD88167580 here is what he had to say,  

This OTalk is about men as occupational therapists as well as the impact of gender on occupational therapy and the occupational therapy workforce. Although I am the only male OT student within my cohort, I believe there should be no reason why there isn’t more of an equal gender representation based on population in the profession. I am keen to attract more men to consider OT as a viable career option. 

Discussions by prominent OT and AHP authors suggest that it is important to consider the effect of gender imbalance within the AHP professions on opportunities for client choice (Brown 1991 and Bohn et al. 2019), reduced availability of positive role models for clients (Ortiz 2018, Brown 1991 and Redman 1992) and for OT what could be seen as a waste of talent for a career that has major recruitment issues in some parts of the UK (RCOT 2017). 

There are currently 3,155 male OTs in the UK, which equates to 7.9% of the total number of OT professionals (HCPC 2019). Whilst there are over a thousand more male OTs practicing than in 2005 (HCPC 2017), this is representative of a growing field rather than a growth in the number of men moving into the profession as the overall percentage of male OT’s in 2019 (7.9% HCPC 2019) shows no real change since 2005 (8.1% HCPC 2017). However, underrepresentation of men as occupational therapists must not be seen as a power dynamic issue as men are relatively overrepresented in OT management positions in comparison to the proportion of men in the general OT workforce (Beagan and Fredericks 2018 and Bohn et al. 2019). 

This talk forms part of a sounding board prior to the commencement of an MSc dissertation entitled “Why do Men Become OTs?” This research aims via a survey to explore the reasoning behind why those men who chose OT have made this decision and to explore if there is a shared set of characteristics present that may have led these men to become occupational therapists. My main goal is to uncover insights from male OT’s that may be used to promote the profession to other men. Whilst I will not use any comments discussed here directly in my research, I am quite keen to be influenced by OT’s perceptions into the impact of gender representation in the OT workforce.  

With this in mind please consider the following question:

1. Why do you think that there are a significantly lower number of male occupational therapists in comparison to the number of female occupational therapists?

2. Considering the small amount of men who are occupational therapist why do you think that some men become OT’s?

3. Do you think that there are certain employment areas of occupational therapy that are more or less accessible to work in based on an OT’s gender?

4. What do you think are the implications of a predominantly female OT workforce?

5. What should be done, if anything, to try and encourage more men to become occupational therapists?

Post chat update

Online transcript from HealthCareHashTags

PDF of transcript #OTalk 17th December 2019

The Numbers

2.223M Impressions
516 Tweets
88 Participant

#OTalk Participants

This week #OTalk will be hosted by Susan Griffiths – @SusanGriffiths5  here is what she had to say;

The use of evidence-based practice has become increasingly important in occupational therapy practice.  As occupational therapists we all want to provide occupation-based interventions for our clients that actually work. However, in reality this is challenging especially in the UK where the NHS services are underfunded and yet we are still expected to deliver evidence-based interventions on limited resources.

This has got me wondering what interventions is everyone using in practice. I know in my workplace, the OTs are using a mixture of OT interventions but not all of them are supported by research evidence (at least not yet).

In a society where we are under pressure to provide evidence based interventions on increasingly limited resources, why do we as OTs still persists in using interventions that have limited evidence? So, with this in mind, I would like to invite you all join me in a discussion where the following questions will be asked:

1. What evidence-based interventions are you currently using in practice?
2. What are or have been the challenges or barriers to providing evidence-based interventions?
3. What interventions are you using that you know has limited or emerging evidence and why?
4. Should we only be using evidence-based interventions?
5. What can we do to increase the evidence for occupation-based interventions in our daily practice?

Post Chat Updates:

The Numbers

1.683M Impressions
402 Tweets
69 Participants

Online transcript from HealthCare HashTags Project.

PDF of the transcript: #OTalk 10 Dec 2019

#OTalk Participants

This month’s #OTalk Research will be hosted by Dr Naomi Gallant (@naomi_gallant) on the important topic of how we can include people who lack capacity to provide informed consent in our research. Here’s what Naomi has to say:

The Mental Capacity Act (2005) stipulates that in order for a person to be deemed to have the mental capacity to make a decision they must be able to:
– understand the decision they are making and the information relevant to it
– retain the information relevant to the decision
– weigh up or use the information to inform the decision making
– and be able to communicate their decision (by any means)

(https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/policies-standards-legislation/mental-capacity-act/)

One of the most important principles of the assessing mental capacity is that each assessment is decision and time specific. Somebody may have the capacity to understand, retain, weigh up and communicate what they would like to eat or drink in a set moment but may not be able to use the same thought processes to make the decision about a discharge plan home from hospital. The ability to make any decision can also fluctuate.

Understanding and retaining the information needed to make an informed decision to participate in research can be a complicated one! As a group, people who lack capacity to consent to participate in research are often excluded. As clinicians we may be familiar with the MCA principles and feel confident performing mental capacity assessments. Researchers on the other hand, may not all have the clinical experience and so assessing capacity becomes a cumbersome part of recruiting participants for research. Consequently, there is a huge gap of important people’s voices in important research projects.

I’d like to explore the following questions in the Twitter Chat:

The RCOT Specialist Section Neurological Practice (SSNP) Stroke Forum welcomes you to the #OTalk on driving after stroke and invites you to participate in a tweet chat on driving following stroke. The chat will include the meaning of driving to us, the assessment of driving ability, methods of rehabilitation, and adjusting to life without returning to drive.

Driving is an occupation that, to many of us, represents a means of independence. This can include the independence to travel to work, to visit our family and friends, to support our everyday lives such as travelling to the supermarket, and to undertake our leisure activities. Much of our domestic and social lives are supported by us being able to drive and losing this ability would be highly likely to significantly impact on our lives.

In the UK, following a stroke, people are not permitted to drive for at least one month. After this time, people must not drive if there are enduring physical and cognitive limitations. Doctors may give the go-ahead for returning to driving if they consider that the person’s abilities are adequate. When there is uncertainty around a person’s abilities, a referral may be made to a driving assessment service where the person will be tested with a combination of physical and cognitive assessments and an on-road test.

As stroke is a condition where varying degrees of recovery is possible, rehabilitation may be a means to improve a person’s ability to increase the chance of returning to drive. Rehabilitation to improve independence in most occupations usually includes the practice of that occupation, but this is not possible with driving as people cannot legally drive before being assessed as competent. Thus, occupational therapy must depend on indirect methods of assessment and rehabilitation towards an outcome that is not guaranteed of returning to drive.

Please consider the following questions:

1. What does the occupation of driving mean to you?
2. How do you determine whether somebody can resume driving following the first month after stroke or whether testing at an official assessment service is required?
3. How do you rehabilitate a person’s driving?
4. How can occupational therapy help those who do not return to driving?

We hope the conversation resulting from the above questions will help us to understand different perspectives on driving after stroke and to discover methods which occupational therapists use to assess driving ability, to provide rehabilitation and to work towards developing alternatives to driving.

POST CHAT 

Online Transcript

The Numbers

1.498MImpressions
407Tweets
28Participants
326Avg Tweets/Hour
15Avg Tweets/Participant

#OTalk Participants

Data for #OTalk can be up to 15 minutes delayed

This week Rachel Rules ‪@_rachelOT and ‬ ‪ Rebecca Twinley‬ ‪@RebeccaTwinley‬ will be leading the chat,  here is what she had to say…

Sex work holds a ‘provocative place in the social psyche’(McCray, Wesely, & Rasche, 2011), yet sex work is a more commonplace role than society recognises. It is predicted that 40-42 million people engage in sex as work globally (Fondation Scelles, 2016), however, there are complications in making this estimate due to the covert nature of sex workand the actual amount is likely much higher. Sex workers are a diverse community from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds – this community encompasses women, men, transgender and gender-diverse individuals – and ways of engaging in sex as work are equally as varied.

In the search for Occupational Therapy literature related to this community of people, it was found that there is a dearth of research from an occupational perspective. Though, Ecklund, Arana, Henning, Lopez, Patel and Varnell’s (2018) phenomenological study explores the facilitators and barriers to occupational participation for six female exotic dancers leaving the sex industry and recognises the role of the Occupational Therapist in working with this population.

When considering the promotion of health through occupation, the stigma that sex workers face can greatly contribute to marginalisation and alienation in society (Open Society Foundations, 2019). This can affect access to health care services and if a person chooses to leave sex work, future working roles.

When considering the lives of sex workers as occupational beings, it is useful to consider the concept of the ‘dark side of occupation’ (Twinley, 2013), in exploring the unexplored and ensuring that people and their occupations are not ‘censored’ or ‘condemned’.

The aim of this #OTalk is simply to encourage thinking about Occupational Therapists’ knowledge, pre-conceptions andabilities in working holistically with sex workers.

This #Otalk differs, in that I have invited the sex workers of twitter to engage in the latter part of the talk, in the hope of capturing their experiences of accessing mainstream healthand social care services and to learn how we can improve our services and approach.

Questions.
1. What is your current knowledge and understanding of sex as work?

2. Do you believe that discussing sex work is within your remit as an Occupational Therapist?

3. Are you aware of any non-mainstream or sex worker specific services in your community that you could signpost sex workers to, if they wished to access them?

4. What do you perceive the Occupational Therapy role to be in working with sex workers in your community?

5. The following two questions are directed at people who engage in sex as work – Do you have any experiences to share in accessing ‘mainstream’ health and social careservices (for both physical and mental health)? Do you disclose your work?

6. Is there anything that you think could be improved? What would you like health and social care professionals to know?

Post Chat Updates:

Online Transcript: #OTalk Transcript from www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/OTalk

PDF of transcript: #OTalk 19 Nov 2019

The Numbers

1.579M Impressions
472 Tweets
76 Participants

#OTalk Participants

References.

Eckland, E., Arana, J., Henning, L., Lopez, J., Patel., R. & Varnell, J. (2018) Exploring the role of occupational therapy with women leaving the sex industry. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72, 1.

Fondation Scelles (2016) Prostitution. Exploitation, persecution, repression. Retrieved from https://www.fondationscelles.org/pdf/RM4/1_Book_Prostitution_Exploitation_Persecution_Repression_Fondation_Scelles_ENG.pdf

McCray, K., Wesely, J. K., & Rasche, C. E. (2011). Rehab retrospect: Former prostitutes and the (re)construction of deviance. Deviant Behavior, 32(8), 743–768.

Open Society Foundations (2019). Understanding Sex Work in an Open Society. Retrieved from https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-sex-work-open-society

Twinley, R. (2013) The dark side of occupation: a concept for consideration. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 60(4), 301-303.