Real gains: development of a tool to measure outcomes for urban First Australian children accessing culturally responsive interprofessional therapy

ABSTRACT

Healthcare services are accountable to their clients, communities, governments and funding sources to clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions. A First Australian children’s therapy service delivering culturally responsive, interprofessional collaborative practice aimed to evaluate their service. However, this process was constrained by available outcome measures which lacked the flexibility necessary for meaningful use within the dynamic and relational nature of their service delivery. This paper outlines an action research process in three cycles which was used to develop the Australian Therapies Outcome Measure for Indigenous Clients (ATOMIC) with the aim of evaluating therapy outcomes for urban First Australian children engaged in culturally responsive interprofessional therapy. Interrater reliability values of 0.995 and 0.982 were established for ATOMIC pre- and post-therapy measures, respectively, during a pilot phase involving 16 participants. Participants in the main study were 80 First Australian children aged two to 16 years who attended between two and nine interprofessional therapy sessions with occupational therapists and speech pathologists. Pre- and post-therapy ATOMIC scores confirmed progress on pre-determined functional goals across a range of skill domains. Outcomes of this study demonstrated that real gains are being made in urban First Australian children’s lives following interprofessional collaborative service provision.

KEYWORDS:

• First Australian
• indigenous
• interprofessional collaboration
• goal achievement
• occupational therapy
• speech pathology

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne E. Hill

Anne Hill is a Senior Lecturer in Speech Pathology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland and holds an affiliate appointment with the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. Anne has extensive clinical practice experience and is an active researcher in teaching and learning including students’ development of cultural responsiveness through their clinical practice.

Alison Nelson

Alison Nelson is an occupational therapist with extensive research, teaching and practice experience working alongside urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Alison has a particular interest in inter-professional practice, and her work focusses on developing practical strategies which enable Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, researchers and practitioners to understand effective ways of working together.

Jodie A. Copley

Jodie Copley is an Associate Professor and Clinical Education Director in Occupational Therapy at the University of Queensland. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Occupational Therapy Australia Research Academy. Jodie’s areas of research include interprofessional practice in university clinics, occupational therapy clinical reasoning and interprofessional clinical education.

Teresa Quinlan

Teresa Quinlan is the Clinic Manager of The University of Queensland (UQ) Health & Rehabilitation Occupational Therapy Clinic.She has worked for many years with local Indigenous schools and communities and has been a co-investigator on research studies evaluating the impact of student placements on students’ development of interprofessional and intercultural knowledge and skills.

Chrisdell F. McLaren

Chrisdell McLaren is an occupational therapist with extensive experience in student supervision in practice settings and university clinics. Chrisdell was the Clinic Lead for Paediatric Occupational Therapy and is currently the Operations Manager for Allied Health at the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health, working with clinicians from 8 disciplines, who provide services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients across clinics in South East Queensland.

Rebekah White

Rebekah White is an Occupational Therapist at the Institute for Urban Indigenous in both research and paediatric services. Her research has concentrated on developing a culturally responsive workforce in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. Currently she works inter-professionally with a speech pathologist providing group programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who attend a local community kindergarten.

Catherine Castan

Catherine Castan is a speech pathologist with extensive paediatric experience. She has worked as the Clinic Lead for Speech Pathology at the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health.  In this role she worked closely with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal staff to provide culturally safe, interprofessional speech pathology services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, in both clinical and educational settings.

Julie Brodrick

Julie Brodrick is an Accredited Practicing Dietitian (APD) at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) working in Diabetes, Maternity clinics and Renal Dialysis Units and a Credentialled Diabetes Educator (CDE). Julie previously worked at the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health where she developed a passion for working with Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people and is currently working to develop an Allied Health cultural capability team at the RBWH.