A process for developing sustainable evidence-based occupational therapy practice

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe how long-term improvement work based on the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model (OTIPM) evolved in an occupational therapy unit.

Data included written documents related to the improvement work (435 pages in total) from 2001 to 2013 that were analysed using pattern matching.

The findings from the analysis of the documents formed three main patterns describing reorientation towards the OTIPM, establishment of the implementation of the OTIPM, and ensuring the sustainability of the implementation. Each pattern contained a number of phases of the improvement work emanating from different reasons and resulting in different long-term achievements. The transformation between the phases was smooth, and several of the phases became starting points for improvement work that continued throughout the years.

The findings showed how an occupational therapy model of practice, such as the OTIPM, can guide an improvement process and keep it going over a long period of time, thereby supporting sustainable improvements in practice.