Given the current health care debate, it is imperative to document the usefulness of various health services for older persons, a rapidly growing population at increased risk for a wide variety of physical and functional impairments. A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the degree of effectiveness of occupational therapy for older persons. For a sample of 15 distinct tests of occupational t...

Focus groups were conducted with caregivers from eight racial-specific or ethnic-specific populations (African Americans, Chinese, Filipinos, Hispanics, Koreans, Native Americans, Russians, and Vietnamese), to examine cultural variations in caregiving experiences, care-related values and beliefs, care practices, and factors contributing to decisions about the use of caregiver support services. ...

This paper presents a new synthesis of the coping literature, the Appraisal Model of Coping. It is based largely on the theoretical concepts of the cognitive relational theory of coping and emotion (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, 1987) and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977). The model provides a conceptual template to guide occupational therapy intervention with respect to assisting patients to ...

I n the present issue of the European Respiratory Review, JOLLEY and MOXHAM [1] present ‘‘A physiological model of patient-reported breathlessness during daily activities in COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]’’. The purpose of their interesting approach is to explain why a given patient may experience breathlessness in some particular situations of his/her daily life, based on the var...

The process of treatment planning requires the effective application of complex problem-solving skills. The occupational therapy literature has described components of this process and has identified both the difficulty educators have in teaching and the difficulty clinicians have in articulating the process of clinical problem solving. This paper presents a conceptual model of the dynamic proc...

Context: All-hazards. Global applications of evidence-based guidance for disaster behavioral health support in disasters. This Commentary introduces trauma signature (TSIG) analysis as an evidence-based method that examines the interrelationship between population exposure to a disaster, extreme event, or complex emergency; and the interrelated physical and psychological consequences; for the p...

BACKGROUND Occupational quartz exposure continues to be a serious hazard in the construction industry. Until now, evidence-based interventions aimed at reducing quartz exposure are scarce. The aim of this study was to systematically develop an intervention and to describe the study to evaluate its effectiveness. METHODS/DESIGN The intervention was developed according to the principles of the ...