Occupational therapy practitioners are expected to use evidence to guide their practice, which may help support reimbursement, expand the scope of practice, help with staffing justifications, and support service provision. Both the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA’s) Centennial Vision (AOTA, 2007) and the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 3rd Edition (Framework; AOTA, 2014) describe the expectation that occupational therapy practitioners use evidence to inform practice. Many studies conclude that health professionals agree on the concept of evidence-based practice (EBP), yet historically a gap has existed between the concept of EBP and actual clinical care (Grol & Wensing, 2004). Personal observations by the author and feedback from colleagues and students indicate that the gap still exists, with EBP not occurring in many settings.
This article is based on an evidence-based project designed to determine whether an in-service education program on EBP would increase knowledge of tools and resources to help practitioners become more evidence based. The project was conducted as part of the requirement for the author’s doctorate in occupational therapy, and the author refers to herself as “the investigator” throughout this article.
This 6-week in-service program about EBP was implemented with occupational therapists from a rehabilitation hospital, although it is also applicable to occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants in other settings. The investigator presented three interactive in-services to the group during their regularly scheduled staff meeting time. On the 3 alternating weeks between these biweekly sessions, each occupational therapist received a personalized folder with independent activities to complete, including articles, handouts, and links to databases and videos. The project was designed to be client centered, and therapists were encouraged to actively participate by contributing topics for discussion. The “clients” in this project were the therapists themselves. A pretest and posttest using the Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire (EBPQ; Upton & Upton, 2006b) measured knowledge acquired during the project.
The following describes one model for providing tools and resources to increase occupational therapy practitioners’ knowledge of EBP. It can be customized to meet the needs of individual practitioners and/or entire practice settings. To maximize engagement in the project, a weekly email was sent to all participants reviewing the prior week’s activity and encouraging participation for the current week. The investigator was available by phone and email throughout the project so participants could ask questions and make suggestions for topics for subsequent weeks. The project was designed to be “client centered” so that it would meet the needs of the department as well as individual therapists. Outcomes indicated that a 6-week in-service education program using a combination of in-services and independent activities increased knowledge of tools and resources to help the participants become evidence-based therapists.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify real and perceived barriers for using EBP
2. Identify practical and user-friendly methods for teaching occupational therapy practitioners about the tools and resources necessary to become evidence-based practitioners
3. Recognize strategies and concepts to facilitate EBP in any work setting
AOTA Taxonomy Key Words: General & Professional Issues
CE Find Key Words: Evidence-based Practice
Learning Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants
Content Focus: Category 3: Professional Issues: Administration and Management
Reference Information:
Zelnick, Debra S., (2015) Show Me the Evidence: A Collaborative Model for Increasing Evidence-Based Practice. OT Practice, 20(19). CE-1–CE-8