Occupational therapy practice: generic or domain specific?

The objectives of this study were: 1) to examine each of the 219 functions on the Occupational Therapy-Occupational Profile in an attempt to identify the functions that were domain-specific to physical dysfunction (PD) and mental health (MH) practice; 2) to demonstrate that occupational therapy practice is generic in nature if more than 25% of all occupational profile functions were not domain-specific; 3) to identify functions carried out by at least 75% of all therapists as core (essential) functions, and 4) to relate the findings to the expressed shortage of fieldwork placements, particularly in the mental health domain. Chi Square analyses were used to examine the data from the evaluations of 100 therapists (76 PD and 24 MH) and 93 therapists (75 PD and 18 MH) on 122 functions and 97 functions respectively of the occupational profile. Findings with this sample suggest that: 1) 8 functions (3.7%) were domain-specific to MH practice and 18 functions (8%) were domain-specific to PD practice; 2) occupational therapy practice could be defined as generic in nature, and 3) of the 219 functions, 112 (51%) could be identified as core functions.