Conflict of interest statement for all authors
Ritchard Ledgerd and Claudia von Zweck hold professional roles within
the World Federation of Occupational Therapists. Tiago Jesus has a
voluntary agreement with World Federation of Occupational Therapists for
development of a strategy for strengthening the occupational therapy
workforce.
Abstract
Background: Occupational Therapists are needed for meeting the health,
rehabilitation, and occupational needs of the population worldwide, but
there is no strategy for strengthening the occupational therapy
workforce against a backdrop of an insufficient and inequitable supply
worldwide.
Objective: To perform a situational assessment of occupational therapy
workforce development and research toward informing a global human
resources strategy for strengthening the profession.
Method: A multi-methods design incorporating SWOT analysis based on
scoping review findings, workforce development frameworks, and expert
feedback.
Results: Strengths included identified workforce research trends, gaps,
and findings. Weaknesses included a shortage of workforce research, lack
of uniform and readily available workforce datasets, absence of
workforce research programs, over-reliance on descriptive and
non-experimental research, lack of research on workforce topics (e.g.,
diversity), and lack of labor market or economic analyses. Opportunities
are the availability of guidance and tools for strengthening the health
and rehabilitation workforce worldwide, and increased membership from
low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the international
professional federation. Threats include the suboptimal funding of
occupational therapy workforce research, the lack of profession-specific
data on cross-professional datasets and studies, suboptimal educational
capacity in LMICs, lack of universal professional regulation and uniform
workforce data collection in many contexts, and a perceived lower
priority of this health workforce focused on health and wellbeing rather
than medical outcomes.
Conclusion: This SWOT analysis identifies strengths and opportunities to
be seized and weaknesses and threats to be addressed by development of a
strategy for the global strengthening of the occupational therapy
workforce.