Community stakeholders’ perspectives on the role of occupational therapy in primary healthcare: Implications for practice

African Journal of Disability

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Community stakeholders’ perspectives on the role of occupational therapy in primary healthcare: Implications for practice
 
Creator Naidoo, Deshini Van Wyk, Jacqueline Joubert, Robin
 
Subject Primary health care Community stakeholders; primary health care; occupational therapy; service implications
Description Background: Primary healthcare (PHC) is central to increased access and transformation in South African healthcare. There is limited literature about services required by occupational therapists in PHC. Despite policy being in place, the implementation of services at grassroots level does not always occur adequately.Objectives: This study aimed at gaining an understanding of the challenges of being disabled and the services required by occupational therapists (OTs) in rural communities in order to better inform the occupational therapy (OT) training curriculum. Method: An exploratory, descriptive qualitative design was implemented using purposive sampling to recruit 23 community healthcare workers from the uGu district. Snowball sampling was used to recruit 37 members of the uGu community, which included people with disability (PWD) and caregivers of PWDs. Audio-recorded focus groups and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, which were thematically analysed. Ethical approval was obtained from the Biomedical and Research Ethics Committee of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (BE248/14).Results: Two main themes emerged namely: firstly, the challenges faced by the disabled community and secondly appropriate opportunities for intervention in PHC. A snapshot of the social and physical inaccessibility challenges experienced by the community was created. Challenges included physical and sexual abuse, discrimination and marginalisation. Community-based rehabilitation and ideas for health promotion and prevention were identified as possible strategies for OT intervention.Conclusion: The understanding of the intervention required by OT in PHC was enhanced through obtaining the views of various stakeholders’ on the role. This study highlighted the gaps in community-based services that OTs should offer in this context.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Teaching and Learning KwaZulu Natal and grant number: R24TW008863 from the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH OAR and NIH ORWH)
Date 2017-02-28
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — qualitative research
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ajod.v6i0.255
 
Source African Journal of Disability; Vol 6 (2017); 12 pages 2226-7220 2223-9170
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/255/528 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/255/527 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/255/529 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/255/526
 
Coverage South Africa January 2015 -July 2015 From 20 to 70 years; male and female,
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Deshini Naidoo, Jacqueline Van Wyk, Robin Joubert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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