Preparing occupational therapy students to make moral decisions

ABSTRACT There is growing awareness that moral distress has negative consequences for health care practitioners. The preparedness of future occupational therapists to make moral decisions needs to be addressed. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how moral reasoning changes during occupational therapy education. A repeated cross-sectional design was used to collect data from students enrolled in a 5-year entry-level professional program. For students in this study, a type of moral reasoning based on rules and social order was preferred over a type of moral reasoning based on abstract ideals. The consequences for moral distress and implications for occupational therapy education were discussed.