Enhancing student occupational therapists' client-centred counselling skills

Client-centred practice is the cornerstone of the occupational therapy profession. However, there has been little focus on how to teach students to be client-centred practitioners while engaged in counselling.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the use of a client-completed rating scale on student occupational therapists' client-centred counselling skills.

A time-series design was used to measure the changes in students' counselling skills over time. Demographic information was collected prior to time one. An online questionnaire was administered after study completion to explore students' experiences of using the Session Rating Scale.

The impact of using the Session Rating Scale as a measure of students' client-centred counselling skills performance significantly improved over time. Most students valued using the rating scale and would recommend its use for future students.

The process of supporting students to learn how to engage clients in providing timely feedback and using this feedback to design treatment sets the stage for integration and application of client-centred practice.