Survey of Performance Standards of Community Occupational Therapy Service in Hong Kong

This survey was a profession-wide activity that aimed to collect information of different natures and in different formats from community occupational therapy (COT) practices in local settings. The objectives were: 1) to identify and define the scope of service in the practice of COT; 2) to identify common clinical procedures within each scope of service; 3) to document the quantitative standards of identifiable care episodes; and 4) to identify causes of the differences in performance standards, if any. The survery used a sequential case series design, which requires each participating therapist to complete questionnaires for five to 10 consecutive cases within a 3-month period. A total of 48 therapists from 17 centres registered as participants, and 95 survey forms were completed. Seven core service areas were defined as: screening, home modifications, prescription of aids, skills training, making of referrals, community care information, and arrangement of consultations. The processes and procedures were documented and evaluated against the 95 cases. From the findings, there was no correlation between the number of visits paid and the Barthel Index (BI) score of each patient. Nonetheless, the number of visits did correlate with the total number of problems identified (p = 0.001). The average number of visits per subject was only 1.3. We found that variations in treatment content and time spent were small among therapists. A total average of 3.5 hours were spent for a consultation, with approximately 50% of the time spent at clients' homes. Detailed time standards for each service area are listed for reference