Occupations are activities and tasks that are personally meaningful and meet one's needs. Occupation-based practice is an approach to clinical practice that uses occupation as a therapeutic medium to achieve occupational outcomes based on the belief in a reciprocally beneficial relationship between occupation and health. This therapeutic approach yields improved client outcomes but use of occupation-based approaches has waned in clinical practice secondary to healthcare trends and become reductionistic and mechanistic. This proposed study aims to explore the professional development journey specific to occupation-based practice for individual students and across levels of academic education, practice settings, and regions of the country. Occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant students from eleven colleges and universities around the United States will self-assess their use of occupation-based practice using the Occupation-Based Practice Assessment at different intervals during their clinical education experiences. The analysis will include a depiction of the development of occupation-based practice skills and a comparison between practice settings, levels of education, and geographic regions. Participants will also receive a personalized report as feedback about their performance.

Dr. Wendy Stav is the faculty mentor for this assignment and has helped tremendously in developing and creating this poster! Her expertise and guidance have helped elevate our poster to its fullest potential. We are grateful for her ongoing support and mentorship, which have undoubtedly contributed to our success.