Most existing tools for measuring sensory patterns of children have been developed in Western countries. These tools are complex and may not be culturally appropriate for other contexts that require specific knowledge in the clinical perspective. The aim of this study was to develop a simplified tool called the Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment (TSPA) tool for children. It is designed for children ages 3–12 years old to be completed by their caregiver. The process of creating the tool consisted of drafting a questionnaire and interpreting the result. Partial psychometrics were completed during item development, content validity of items was assessed by five expert ratings. Construct validity and internal consistency were assessed using data from 414 caregivers and intra-rater reliability was assessed with 40 caregivers. The two parts of the TSPA tool for children results, sensory preference, and sensory arousal, were designed to be presented as a sensory pattern in a radar chart/plot. The data analysis showed that both parts of the TSPA tool for children had acceptable psychometric properties with the retained 65 items. Only proprioceptive sensory arousal had a low Cronbach’s α coefficient, suggesting more information sharing between caregivers and professionals is needed. This research is an initial study and must be continuously developed. Future development of this tool in technology platforms is recommended to support use within healthcare services.
Background: The Thai Sensory Profile Assessment Tool (TSPA) is a tool for measuring individual effects of sensory stimuli events in daily life. The tool is divided into sensory preference, which is relatively stable and formulated from personal experience, and sensory threshold, which is more labile that determines the intensity of sensory perception. A high sensory threshold person would perceive less intensity than those with a low threshold. The earlier study found that TSPA has acceptable validity and reliability in classifying sensory processing patterns. Objective: The study aims to examine the feasibility and interpretability of TSPA for classifying sensory patterns of participants who attend the Mindfulness-Based Flow Practice (MBFP) and Relax On-site program. We hypothesize that different sensory processing patterns may influence MBFP and Relax On-site program response. Materials and methods: This study is a part of a clinical trial project. The participants were 20 volunteers who are healthy nursing staff working in a university hospital. Each participant was self-tested by TSPA before the intervention, either relaxation on-site or MBFP in the residential retreat program. The effect of MBFP or relaxation on-site was measured quantitatively by the change of serum morning cortisol before and after the intervention and qualitatively from satisfaction interviews after the intervention. Results: The TSPA assessment takes time average of 5 minutes. We classified participants by TSPA pattern into three groups by the sensory preference, including, 1) Balanced majority (14/20) have a moderate sensory preference and threshold, 2) low sensory preference for taste and smell (3/20), and 3) high sensory preference for sight smell and movement (3/20). At the same time, most participants show higher cortisol after relaxation on-site and decreased cortisol after MBFP. We found people with low smell sensory preference, low smell sensory threshold, high sensory preference insight, and movement with moderate threshold showed a different response. Conclusions: This pilot study showed that TSPA is not a time-consuming tool. It can be a feasible tool for assessing the sensory preference of the participants to match the health promotion modalities appropriately. However, it needs a larger sample to prove this hypothesis. Keywords: Thai Sensory Profile Assessment Tool (TSPA), sensory preferences, sensory thresholds, cortisol, satisfaction, Mindfulness-Based Flow Practice.
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to global reports of hazards to mental health. However, reports regarding lifestyle changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking. Using a convergent mixed methods design, we conducted individual interviews with twelve occupational therapy students and interpreted the results by content analysis. We completed a survey of Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment (TSPA) concerning perspectives from occupational therapy students (n = 99). They identified two major themes: (i) adaptive responses were consistent with areas of occupation during the COVID-19 pandemic; (ii) multidimensional challenges were related to sensory patterns of purposeful and meaningful activities. The participants reported both positive and negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives. It had both positive and negative effects on the lifestyle of students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The positive effect was that most students learned better ways to protect and care for themselves. During the COVID-19 pandemic, occupational therapy students were most concerned about their online learning activities, economic problems, isolation from society, and lifestyle. The negative effects of this include stress, anxiety, loneliness, frustration, boredom, and exhaustion for occupational therapy students. As an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, occupational therapy students adapted to new lifestyles and experienced mental health issues related to their studies, families, friends, economics, social climate, and future job opportunities. Educators may use the findings of this study to prevent negative impacts on mental health and promote academic achievement in the future, as well as general well-being, efficacy, and empowerment of students in the new normal post-COVID-19 pandemic era.
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