This study investigated rationales underlying splinting decisions involving patients with hemiplegia. The survey incorporated a limited-choice, multiple-option questionnaire based on the case study of a man with a left hemiparesis at three hypothetical stages of recovery. Ninety-three occupational therapists who answered indicated whether they would or would not recommend a splint at each stage, and selected one or more reasons for their decisions. The respondents fell into three major categories: those who would 1. never splint, 2. always splint, and 3. splint only in the presence of moderate to severe spasticity. Those with longer clinical experience reflected more tendency to splint. The results indicated conflicting practices in splinting and showed the need for further clinical research in this area.

The Social Profile has the potential to be used with a wide range of children to assess and treat their social skill deficits. Occupational therapy students and clinicians can use the assessment for training and to expand their observational abilities for evaluating social skills.

The occupational therapy curriculum may have influenced the scores of the entry-level students, in both intellectual and psychosocial traits, in a positive direction.

This study evaluated levels of social competence of 90 female psychiatric patients as it relates to diagnosis and age of onset of illness. Subjects in three diagnostic categories were studied: non-paranoid schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, and bipolar affective disorder. Measures of discriminant analysis and central tendency indicate that varying scores of sociability, social presence, and socialization are associated with specific diagnoses and ages of onset of psychosis, beyond expected levels of probability. The results of this research encourage examination of diagnosis, age of onset of psychosis, sociability, social presence, and socialization in determining the composition of heterogeneous and homogeneous psychosocial activities treatment groups in occupational therapy. Further studies are recommended to foster understanding of evaluation and treatment of social competence factors.

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