Evaluation of an Intensive Occupational Therapy Intervention to Facilitate Independent Living and Improve Occupational Performance and Participation. Results of a Longitudinal Case Study Design

Abstract

Residents in mental health residential facilities often experience impaired occupational and social engagement. Although many residents would prefer living in a home of their own, individualized support may be required to enable successful and independent engagement in daily living skills. This longitudinal case study evaluates the impact of individualized occupational therapy interventions to enable occupational engagement in the context of the transition to a home of one’s own in the community in Ireland. The results demonstrate the potential benefits of this approach with improvements in competence and satisfaction in occupational performance and engagement and gains maintained one-year post intervention.

Keywords:

• Independent living
• occupational therapy assistant
• longitudinal case study
• occupational performance
• occupational engagement

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Mark Morgan-Brown for his feedback and comments which greatly improved this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research received a grant from Genio, a non-profit specializing in social service transformation which was used for the specific purpose of funding the occupational therapy assistant post.