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Exploring occupational therapists’ views about Nussbaum’s central human functional capabilities : an exploratory sequential mixed methods study

University of British Columbia

BACKGROUND: The 21st century marks a shift in the perspective of care of people with disabilities with greater attention to individual human rights. An innovative approach related to human rights that provides a basis for conceptualizing and framing the rights of people with disabilities, is the Capability or Capabilities Approach. Developed by Sen and extended by Nussbaum, the approach advocates that fundamental human rights can be viewed as claims to certain basic capabilities. Nussbaum has proffered ten so-called Central Human Functional Capabilities (CHFCs). OBJECTIVE: To explore the views of Canadian occupational therapists (OTs) related to the CHFCs and their understanding and perceived relevance, with respect to their professional practice. METHODS: An exploratory sequential mixed methods design including an initial qualitative phase that informed a subsequent quantitative phase. Phase One consisted of semi-structured interviews with OTs (n=14) in British Columbia, Canada. The findings from Phase One generated 11 categories with 22 themes and 75 sub-themes. These findings informed the development of a questionnaire to survey Canadian OTs, nationally. A cross-sectional survey, registered with the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists was conducted in Phase Two to determine the applicability of Phase One findings about the CHFCs to a broader group of OTs from across Canada. The survey was hosted at the website Fluid Surveys®. We sampled 780 OTs with a response of 109 (14%). RESULTS: Respondents understood the CHFCs as reflecting occupational therapy values. They perceived the CHFCs as relevant and consistent with established models of and approaches to occupational therapy practice including professionally-valued constructs of human rights and social justice as well as health and client-centered care. CONCLUSION: These findings unify and advance the conceptual bases for occupational therapy models and approaches by enabling OTs to better fulfill their professional mandate of addressing their clients’ needs from an overarching human rights perspective. Importantly, these results align occupational therapy services with client-centered practice, and human rights initiatives of the United Nations and World Health Organization. Our findings could be used by other health professions and across cultures to establish whether the Capabilities Approach is applicable across professional practices and health services.

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2014-02-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/46065

Rehabilitation Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/