Budman Jennifer, Zaguri-Vittenberg Shahar
School of Occupational Therapy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Aust Occup Ther J. 2025 Feb;72(1):e13011. doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.13011.
'Occupational experience' (OE) is widely used within the occupational therapy profession. However, it lacks a clear and unified definition in the profession's consensus practice frameworks and seminal models. Therefore, this study aimed to examine how OE has been defined and described in both occupational therapy and occupational science literature.
A scoping review was performed, with a search conducted in ProQuest, PsycINFO, EMBASE, PubMed, Academic Research Premier, Scopus and Web of Science. The search strategy included a combination of the terms 'occupational experience' and either 'occupational therapy' or 'occupational science'. Inclusion criteria consisted of research articles in English that included OE as one of the central foci. Articles were chosen by the research team in collaboration with a medical librarian.
No consumer and community involvement was included in this study.
Seventy-three articles were included, mostly investigating OE in a targeted group or a specific aspect of experience, primarily among Western high-income-countries. Only 14 articles provided definitions of OE, with the most frequent being 'subjective dimension of occupation/participation'. Six themes emerged: (1) OE as a subjective component of occupation, (2) OE consisting of interrelated experiential facets, (3) OE in relation to meaning, (4) OE in relation to self-identity, (5) OE in relation to context and environment and (6) OE in relation to health outcomes.
The results point to largely incongruous definitions and descriptions of OE in the literature.
This study looked at how "occupational experience" (OE) is described in occupational therapy and occupational science. We reviewed 73 research articles. Most of these articles focused on OE in specific groups, like asylum seekers, or on types of experiences, like the feeling of "flow." Most of the research was done in Western countries. The most common definition of OE was "a person's experience of doing an activity." We also found six main ideas about OE. These show that OE is personal, can include several experiences at once, connects to a person's identity and environment, and affects health.
“职业体验”（OE）在职业治疗领域被广泛使用。然而，在该领域的共识实践框架和开创性模型中，它缺乏清晰统一的定义。因此，本研究旨在探讨职业治疗和职业科学文献中对职业体验的定义和描述方式。
进行了一项范围综述，在ProQuest、PsycINFO、EMBASE、PubMed、Academic Research Premier、Scopus和Web of Science中进行检索。检索策略包括“职业体验”与“职业治疗”或“职业科学”的组合词。纳入标准为以英文撰写且将职业体验作为核心焦点之一的研究文章。文章由研究团队与医学图书馆员合作挑选。
本研究未纳入消费者与社区参与。
纳入73篇文章，大多针对特定群体或体验的特定方面对职业体验进行研究，主要集中在西方高收入国家。只有14篇文章给出了职业体验的定义，最常见的定义是“职业/参与的主观维度”。出现了六个主题：（1）职业体验作为职业的主观组成部分，（2）职业体验由相互关联的体验方面组成，（3）与意义相关的职业体验，（4）与自我认同相关的职业体验，（5）与背景和环境相关的职业体验，（6）与健康结果相关的职业体验。
结果表明文献中对职业体验的定义和描述在很大程度上不一致。
本研究考察了职业治疗和职业科学中如何描述“职业体验”（OE）。我们回顾了73篇研究文章。这些文章大多聚焦于特定群体（如寻求庇护者）的职业体验或特定类型的体验（如“心流”感受）。大部分研究在西方国家进行。职业体验最常见的定义是“一个人进行某项活动的体验”。我们还发现了关于职业体验的六个主要观点。这些表明职业体验是个人化的，可同时包含多种体验，与个人身份和环境相关联，并影响健康。
