Center for Education in Health Sciences, Institute for Public Health and Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Professions, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77555, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 27;19(9):5307. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095307.
Occupational therapists are needed to meet the health and occupational needs of the global population, but we know little about the type of findings generated by occupational therapy workforce research conducted worldwide. We aim to synthesize these findings and their range of content to inform future investigations. A scoping review with content analysis was used. Six scientific databases, websites of official institutions, snowballing, and key informants were used for searches. Two independent reviewers took selection decisions against the eligibility criteria published a priori in the review protocol. Of the 1246 unique references detected, 57 papers were included for the last 25 years. A total of 18 papers addressed issues of attractiveness and retention, often in Australia, and 14 addressed the issues of supply, demand, and distribution, often in the US. Only these two categories generated subtopics. Many workforce issues were rarely addressed as a main topic (e.g., race/ethnic representation). Cross-national, cross-regional, or cross-professional studies generated more actionable findings. Overall, we found few discernable trends, minimal evidence of research programs, and various gaps in content coverage or in the use of contemporary research approaches. There is a need for a coordinated strengthening of the occupational therapy workforce research worldwide.
职业治疗师需要满足全球人口的健康和职业需求，但我们对全球范围内进行的职业治疗师劳动力研究产生的研究结果类型知之甚少。我们旨在综合这些研究结果及其内容范围，为未来的研究提供信息。本研究采用了范围综述和内容分析方法。我们在六个科学数据库、官方机构网站、滚雪球和关键知情人中进行了检索。两名独立的审查员根据事先在审查方案中公布的纳入标准做出选择决定。在检测到的 1246 个独特参考文献中，有 57 篇论文涵盖了过去 25 年的内容。共有 18 篇论文探讨了吸引力和保留率的问题，这些论文通常来自澳大利亚，14 篇论文探讨了供应、需求和分布的问题，这些论文通常来自美国。只有这两个类别产生了子主题。许多劳动力问题很少作为主要问题来讨论（例如，种族/族裔代表性）。跨国、跨地区或跨专业的研究产生了更多可操作的研究结果。总的来说，我们发现几乎没有明显的趋势，研究方案的证据很少，内容覆盖范围或使用当代研究方法方面存在各种差距。需要在全球范围内协调加强职业治疗师劳动力研究。
