Using Constructivist Case Study Methodology to Understand Community Development Processes: Proposed Methodological Questions to Guide the Research Process

Often, research projects are presented as final products with the methodologies cleanly outlined and little attention paid to the decision-making processes that led to the chosen approach. Limited attention paid to these decision-making processes perpetuates a sense of mystery about qualitative approaches, particularly for new researchers who will likely encounter dilemmas and uncertainties in their research. This paper presents a series of questions that assisted one Ph.D. student in making key methodological choices during her research journey. In this study, a collective case study design informed by constructivist grounded theory data analysis methods was used to develop a framework of community development from an occupational therapy perspective. Ten methodological questions are proposed regarding research question development, research paradigm, design and analysis, and trustworthiness. Drawing on examples from this research project, these questions are used to explicate the decisions made “behind the scenes”, with the intention of providing both theoretical and practical guidance to others embarking on similar research journeys

Patients’ Messages as Educators in an Interprofessional Health Education Program

Background: Patients have traditionally played a passive role in health professional education. Health Mentors Programs are new, innovative interprofessional education initiatives that involve "health mentors" (volunteer community patient educators), who share their experiences navigating the healthcare system with an interprofessional team of four health professional students. The purpose of this research was to explore what motivated the patient educators to participate in the Dalhousie Health Mentors Program and what messages they wanted to instill in health professional students.Methods: Data were collected through seven semi-structured focus groups (N = 29) and one individual interview (N = 1), which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative inductive thematic analysis was used to identify key themes.Findings: Our study demonstrated that patients want to play an active role in educating health professional students with the hope of improving the healthcare system. The mentors wanted to convey to the students the importance of interprofessional collaboration, understanding patients are people first, listening to patients, and understanding the visible and invisible impacts of living with chronic conditions.Conclusions: If we expect our students to become competent in providing interprofessional, patient-centred care, it is important that we provide opportunities for patients to be actively involved in health professional education, as they have important messages that cannot be taught from a textbook

International community of practice: learning from experiences of community development and social occupational therapy

Introduction: Increasingly, occupational therapists and scientists across the globe are calling for a shift away from individualised western medical approaches, to working with communities and collectives, and in the social field. This signals the growing motivation to engage in socially responsive and transformative practices that address political structures and oppressive colonial systems. Objective: The purpose of our Community of Practice (CoP) was to explore and describe the epistemologies, vocabularies, and understandings that underpin community development and social occupational therapy within diverse global contexts to advance theoretical perspectives and practices. Method: As a CoP of occupational therapy and science scholars situated in four countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa), we met virtually bi-monthly from March 2020 to January 2023. Scholarly work involved critical narrative literature reviews, reflexive presentations, group dialogues, and individual and collective reflections and analyses. Results: Individual narratives, four thematic threads, and a selection of vocabularies and epistemologies are presented. The thematic threads were: Connecting and making space for decolonial praxis, Questioning the disconnect between occupational therapy practice and contexts, Examining vocabularies that shape contextually relevant practice, and Engaging a reflexive stance to work towards equity, justice and social rights. Conclusions: Generating knowledge that supports ways of knowing, being and doing reflective of multiple languages, sciences, and contexts will strengthen occupational therapy. Maintaining the pluriversal and resisting ‘one size fits all’ approaches to human occupation/everyday life is essential. This paper offers practitioners a catalyst for initiating decolonising praxis for learning across global contexts

Curricular Factors that Unintentionally Affect Learning in a Community-Based Interprofessional Education Program: The Student Perspective

Background: The Dalhousie Health Mentors Program (DHMP) is a community-based, pre-licensure interprofessional education initiative that aims to prepare health professional students for collaborative practice in the care of patients with chronic conditions. This program evaluation explores the students’ 1) learning and plans to incorporate skills into future practice; 2) ratings of program content, delivery, and assignments; 3) perspectives of curricular factors that inadvertently acted as barriers to learning; and 4) program improvement suggestions.Methods: All students (N = 745) from the 16 participating health programs were invited to complete an online mixed methods program evaluation survey at the conclusion of the 2012–2013 DHMP. A total of 295 students (40% response rate) responded to the Likert-type questions analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric statistics. Of these students, 204 (69%) provided responses to 10 open-ended questions, which were analyzed thematically.Findings: While the majority of respondents agreed that they achieved the DHMP learning objectives, the mixed-methods approach identified curriculum integration, team composition, and effectiveness of learning assignments as factors that unintentionally acted as barriers to learning, with three key student recommendations for program improvement.Conclusions: Educators and program planners need to be aware that even well-intended learning activities may result in unintended experiences that hamper interprofessional learning

Patients as Educators: Lessons Learned from an Interprofessional Initiative

Health care reform around the world has called for interprofessional patient/client-centered practice. Educational programs have responded by creating interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities for students. Health Mentors Programs (HMPs) are examples of IPE initiatives that introduce students to collaboration within the context of interprofessional student teams and community volunteers. The first HMP originated atThomasJeffersonUniversityinPhiladelphiain 2007. A HMP was piloted atDalhousieUniversityin 2010. The focus of this presentation is on the Health Mentors participating in the Dalhousie HMP. Health Mentors are adults with chronic conditions or disabilities living in the community who share their experiences navigating the health care system with small groups of interprofessional students. Exploration of the experiences of Health Mentor volunteers can provide insight into the value of and challenges associated with the potentially meaningful role of \u27Mentor\u27. This research project aimed to identify positive and negative factors contributing to the Mentors\u27 experiences participating and to understand how involvement in the program has impacted their daily lives. Focus groups were conducted with Health Mentors (N= 30), which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative inductive thematic analysis was used to identify key themes. Many Health Mentors described the positive impact of sharing their experiences with interprofessional student teams, which provided the sense of giving back to the community and improving health services for others. Some Health Mentors also describe their experience to be empowering as they narrated their stories of perseverance in the face of many challenges. Along with these positive experiences, Mentors also describe the fine balance required around issues of disclosure, vulnerability and managing anger at the health care system. The results of this study highlight the importance of volunteer preparation for the role ofMentor. These results can inform other programs that draw on community volunteers in the role of educator. Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will: 1. Identify two potential opportunities related to volunteer involvement in interprofessional student training programs. 2. Identify two potential risks related to volunteer involvement in interprofessional student training programs. 3. Discuss three key principles that can guide the planning and implementation of similar community-university initiatives to ensure the safety of community patient educator volunteers