Exploring ableism and occupational therapy: Occupational therapy students' perspectives

To explore occupational therapy students' perspectives on ableism and its implications for occupational therapy practice. This formed part of a wider study that also explored occupational therapy educators' perspectives.

An online survey was used to collect students' perspectives, using a mixture of Likert scales and open-ended questions.

The sample comprised 56 occupational therapy students from the United Kingdom (n = 36), United States of America (n = 16) and Canada (n = 4) enrolled in a mixture of undergraduate (n = 13) and postgraduate (n = 43) pre-registration degree programmes. Thirty-four percent of respondents perceived occupational therapy as inherently ableist. This rose to 50% after respondents were presented with a comprehensive definition of ableism. Students reported witnessing and/or experiencing ableism within education (63%) and practice placements (55%). Eighty-six percent of students recognised they may hold unconscious ableist views, and 96% agreed they would like more support to engage in disability studies.

Findings indicated a potential link between understanding of ableism and students' views that occupational therapy is ableist. Most students were aware of the potential they hold unconscious biases and welcomed support to engage further with disability studies. Further qualitative research is needed. Following this, systemic changes to address the harm of ableism can begin to be addressed.