Grant: Fellowship - Priority Announcement: Knowledge Translation

The use of objective methods or instruments for evaluating improvements in patients has been encouraged for decades with little success. Many health care practitioners, including occupational therapists, prefer to use more informal and subjective methods of determining if their patient has improved; unfortunately, these methods are much less accurate. Using an objective approach to measuring improvements in patient care in combination with subjective determination is believed to help health care practitioners to provide better care and ultimately will improve patient outcomes. Strategies that have previously been tried to increase the use of outcome measures have largely failed; however, they have not been designed using theories specific to behaviour change. This project will develop an evidence-based intervention using appropriate theory to increase the use of standardized outcome measures in occupational therapy. This project has 3 theory-driven phases. The first is to review and summarize the methods examined to date and establish if any components have been effective. Second, occupational therapists will be interviewed to better understand the drivers of outcome measure use and to identify what factors might encourage or discourage use. These factors will be organized using proven theories relevant to behaviour change. Third, potential interventions for behaviour change will be mapped to these drivers to ascertain the best behaviour change strategies for this particular issue. The resulting theory-based intervention will be piloted in a rehabilitation hospital. This research has implications for the role of patient measurement in occupational therapy practice and health care practice in general. Through increased use of standardized outcome measures the quality of care will be advanced, patient outcomes will be improved, ultimately improving the health of Canadians.