Creating a continuing professional development course on setting occupation-focused goals

ABSTRACT

Quality insurance processes use goal attainment as criteria for funding occupational therapist (OT) services in Switzerland. As this is an important issue for the Swiss OT association, a continuing professional development (CPD) programme was implemented to assist OTs to set occupation-focused and person-centred goals. This qualitative study was conducted using three focus groups to understand the difficulties met by clinicians in the context of setting goals. Sixteen OTs reported that time constraints and routines make it difficult to define and formulate goals well. The problem is not a lack of knowledge, but to change one’s habits and practices the results. A CPD course was developed, adapted in three languages and implemented. Evaluation of the course indicates that it helps the participants to better understand the need for writing goals that are person-centred and occupation-focused. This course may be supportive of improved occupational-based goal setting in other countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupation-based goal setting
• CPD course
• person-centredness

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to the Swiss Occupational Therapy Association (EVS/ASE) who has been a very supportive partner, to the many occupational therapists that participated in the focus groups, tested the courses and shared their feedback. We want to specifically thank Charles Mayor and Magali Démurger for their contribution to the development of the course (CM, MD) and to the data gathering in the focus group (MD).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by a grant awarded from the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) (N 10438.2 PFES-ES), a federal agency that promotes science-based innovation in Switzerland, and by the Foundation for Occupational Therapy in Zurich, Switzerland.