Occupational therapists’ perceptions of gender – A focus group study

Abstract

Background/aim: Women and men are shaped over the courses of their lives by culture, society and human interaction according to the gender system. Cultural influences on individuals’ social roles and environment are described in occupational therapy literature, but not specifically from a gender perspective. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how a sample of occupational therapists perceives the ‘gender’ concept. Method: Four focus group interviews with 17 occupational therapists were conducted. The opening question was: ‘How do you reflect on the encounter with a client depending on whether it is a man or a woman?’ The transcribed interviews were analysed and two main themes emerged: ‘the concept of gender is tacit in occupational therapy’ and ‘client encounters’. Results: The occupational therapists expressed limited theoretical knowledge of ‘gender’. Furthermore, the occupational therapists seemed to be ‘doing gender’ in their encounters with the clients. For example, in their assessment of the client, they focussed their questions on different spheres: with female clients, on the household and family; with male clients, on their paid work. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that occupational therapists were unaware of the possibility that they were ‘doing gender’ in their encounters with clients. There is a need to increase occupational therapists’ awareness of their own behaviour of ‘doing gender’. Furthermore, there is a need to investigate whether gendered perceptions will shorten or lengthen a rehabilitation period and affect the chosen interventions, and in the end, the outcome for the clients.

New graduate occupational therapists experience of showering assessments: A phenomological study

“…Furthermore, argues that the ideas around the sexualised body and what is socially permissible to see and touch is problematic for health professionals where non‐sexual touch is required as part of their occupation. This is significantly heightened by the social understandings of propriety in the interaction between males and females (Liedberg, Bjork & Hensing, ). Liedberg et al .…”

“…Thus, the findings from this study further support the findings of and Liedberg et al . () in that there is a need for occupational therapy education to raise awareness about the complex and dynamic nature of gender and social norms around nudity and to prepare students with practical skills for addressing these as health professionals.…”

Expectations of choice: an exploration of how social context informs gendered occupation

“…This has since been integrated into Occupational Therapy literature (Goodman et al, 2007;Liedberg and Gunnel, 2011). Two studies exploring and examining the idea of "doing gender" found that occupational therapists and occupational therapy students were focusing on gender traditional roles when setting goals and interventions (Liedberg et al, 2010;Liedberg and Gunnel, 2011). This is an example of how the parameters can be set for the choices available to us by the social environment.…”

Occupational therapy and culture: a literature review

“…Even more, these concepts could contribute to excluding persons in a situation of disability (48). Despite a declared commitment in OT to a client-centred approach, OTs do not always seem to focus on their clients' culture (69).…”

“…From static to dynamic. The first force expresses how the concept of culture has changed in the past decades, from being static and centred on ethnicity to a dynamic, complex, and multidimensional entity (34,35,39,40,42,49,53,57,69). Despite this, the static or reductionist conceptualization remains in use in the discipline, although with some criticism of this (40).…”