Lived experiences of occupational therapy students from under—represented backgrounds in professional educational programs: A scoping review

Objective: The aim of this scoping review is to describe the experiences of occupational therapy students from diverse backgrounds during professional education. The objective is to identify common facilitators, barriers, or strategies that impact their safety and inclusion in professional education and ultimately the workforce, and to highlight any gaps in the literature. Introduction: Occupational therapy lacks diversity in its workforce, which is predominantly White and female in many countries. Increased workforce diversity is a priority for the occupational therapy profession to enhance the provision of culturally competent care and address health inequity and access barriers. Therefore, recruiting and retaining occupational therapy students from diverse backgrounds in a safe and inclusive academic environment is important for the entire profession. Methods : A scoping review of sources exploring the lived experiences of occupational therapy students from one or more diverse backgrounds was undertaken. The sources used qualitative or mixed methods approaches and were published in English since 2014. Databases searched via the EBSCOHost platform included Medline, CINAHL, AMED, Pubmed, SocINDEX, ERIC, and CENTRAL via Cochrane. Citation searching was conducted on included papers using the Connected Papers platform. Articles were screened by two independent researchers by title and abstract, and then by full text, before relevant data were extracted. Results: Thematic analysis identified evidence relating to barriers and facilitators in the systemic and organizational context; departmental and peer supports; and the students' lived experiences of professional programs. Strategies suggested to address these barriers include purposeful mentoring, increased knowledge of the student’s culture, and increased accessibility. Conclusion: There has been an increase in the amount of research published regarding diversifying student populations. The experiences of diverse occupational therapy students during professional education are influenced by multiple individual, group, organizational, and systemic factors. More research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies.