Developing guidelines for client-centred occupational therapy practice

The Canadian Guidelines for the client-centred practice of occupational therapy are national, generic, consensus guidelines developed to address growing concerns inside and outside the profession for assuring the quality of health services. From 1979 to 1987, successive Task Forces, sponsored by the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists, developed three volumes of guidelines. A pivotal guideline in Volume I is a conceptual framework of occupational therapy's central concern: occupational performance within an individual's physical, cultural and social environment. Volume I also outlines stages in the process of client-centred occupational therapy practice, and specific assessment and program planning guidelines. Volume II covers issues, concepts and fundamental elements of intervention, as well as specific guidelines for intervention, discharge, follow-up and evaluation. Volume III reviews issues in outcome measurement given occupational therapy's primary concern for occupational performance. The authors, members of the Task Forces, provide an overview of the development of and their hopes for the Guidelines. Uses and influences of the Guidelines have not been formally documented. However, projects are arising from the Guidelines and a new CAOT Client-Centred Practice Committee is proposing an updating process for the three volumes.