Editorial: Encouraging diversification of research methods to bridge the occupational therapy evidence-practice gap

Citation

Boland, P. (2023), "Editorial: Encouraging diversification of research methods to bridge the occupational therapy evidence-practice gap", Irish Journal of Occupational Therapy, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 21-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOT-11-2023-037

It is my pleasure and privilege to take over as Editor in Chief of the Irish Journal of Occupational Therapy (IJOT) at this time. I wholeheartedly thank Dr Katie Cremin for all her stellar work in his role in the past 12 months and, prior to that, Dr Carol Hills for her leadership and development of this journal. I am grateful for the Editorial team who are continuing to ensure robust peer review and support of all occupational therapy researchers – academic and clinically based, experienced and students – to ensure this proudly Open Access journal can continue to contribute to evidence-based practice in Ireland and internationally.

As I review through the five articles for this edition, it strikes me how our profession has embraced a mix of methods to address gaps in knowledge and/or practise relevant to occupational therapy. Firstly, Yoo (2023) effectively applies scoping review methodology to map the evidence on sleep interventions in mental health, a great example of this popular form of review structure being used to explore an area of clinical relevance to occupational therapy. Examples of cross-sectional survey work include illuminating about student knowledge and attitudes towards older adults with dementia (Gavin et al., 2023), as well as investigating which outcome measures are used by occupational therapy staff in adult social care settings in the UK (Davenport and Underhill, 2023), who interestingly using social media as primary way of recruiting participants. Qualitative network analysis was used by Khalafbeigi et al. (2023) to elicit female adults diagnosed with myalgia encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome, illustrating the hidden and stigmatising influences on occupation of living with these diagnoses through qualitative accounts and analysis.

Across these studies, there is evidence of depth and rigour in how methods are carefully selected to address specific research questions sensitively and comprehensively. In Stapleton et al. (2023), their scholarship of practice approach is clearly derived from occupational therapy thinking (Kielhofner, 2005) and resonates with principles of implementation science currently gaining traction across health-care research (Bauer and Kirchner, 2020) and particularly occupational therapy (Brown and Robinson, 2019) as a means to bridge the research–practice gap, illustrating the contribution occupational therapy can add to that challenge. From the articles in this edition of the IJOT, I take heart that the right methods are being used to address the important questions facing our profession, which take many different forms, illustrating that we are less concerned about “methods wars” of the past (Sale et al., 2002), where one type of research was perceived as better than another, rather than methods can, and should, be complementary.

I look forward to reviewing future work where occupational therapists ask the important questions for their area of practice and locality and are able to continue to competently address these evidence gaps by using nuanced and sophisticated methods appropriate to the range of issues facing our profession and communities.