Supervision in occupational therapy regarding rehabilitation of elderly people in Sweden

The aim of this study was to investigate occupational therapists' supervision of healthcare workers regarding rehabilitation of elderly people in Swedish municipal elderly care. Data were collected through a self-report questionnaire developed for this study. In total, 238 occupational therapists working with supervision of healthcare workers in the field of municipal elderly care participated in the study. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. For supervising healthcare workers, the participants rated highly the importance of cooperation and communication. Many of the participants considered both the time available for one supervision session and the number of supervision sessions to be insufficient. The result also demonstrated that the participants supervised healthcare workers more frequently in P-ADL than in I-ADL. A majority of the participants supervised other groups of people in addition to healthcare workers. The lack of research work in supervision specific to occupational therapy indicates a need for more studies in this area.