Exploring Explicit Attitudes Toward Disability and Professional Identity Among Occupational Therapy and Other...

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Disability Studies
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Professional identity development is crucial for healthcare professionals.
• Attitudes toward disability can influence clinical practice and patient outcomes.
• Understanding these factors among students is vital for effective training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the relationship between professional identity and attitudes toward disability.
• To compare occupational therapy students with students from other health fields.
• To identify factors influencing inclusive attitudes in future healthcare providers.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional survey design.
• Involved 57 occupational therapy students and 74 students from other health fields.
• Data analyzed using descriptive statistics, non-parametric correlations, and linear regression.

Main Results:

• Stronger commitment and energy in studies correlated with more inclusive views on disability (p < .05).
• Advanced academic year and deeper university immersion linked to greater appreciation for positive disability outcomes (p < .05).
• Occupational therapy students demonstrated a relationship between engagement and positive disability attitudes.

Conclusions:

• Nurturing student engagement and inclusive perspectives is essential in occupational therapy curricula.
• Curricula should emphasize inclusion to bolster professional identity and positive disability outlooks.
• Further research with larger, diverse samples is recommended to validate findings.