More creativity! : creative approaches to support clients’ pain management in occupational therapy as part of primary care

Abstract

Creativity and creative approaches are strongly linked to the history of occupational therapy and has long been part of the core competence of occupational therapy. During the past decades the creativity in the field have been vanishing even though, there is evidence-based literature on the potential of creativity in rehabilitation. Pain patients are an emerging client group in primary care worldwide leading to the search of tools for effective rehabilitation.

This research aims to build conversation about the use of creative approaches in occupational therapy in primary care and to investigate the findings of recent qualitative studies on the use of creative approaches in pain management. The research question is: What kinds of creative approaches have been utilised in patients' pain management and in what ways creative approaches can be applied with pain patients in occupational therapy as part of primary care?

Data in this study was gathered from literature including international and national research from the past 30 years as creative approaches were more common before the 21st century in occupational therapy. I conducted a state-of-the-art literature review to fulfil the fundamental purpose of such a review, which is to present an argument describing a specific phenomenon in response to three questions: where are we now, how did we get here, and where could we go next.

In addition to the literature collected, I also collected data from occupational therapists working in the field through one focus group to analyse their attitudes, motivation and experience on using creative approaches in occupational therapy’s pain rehabilitation.