Evidence for your practice: Change agency

Article: Carrier, A., Éthier, A., Beaudoin, M., Hudon, A., Bédard, D., Jasmin, E., & Verville, F. (2021). Acting as change agents: Insight into Québec occupational therapists’ current practice. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 0008417421994367.

Rationale: Previous research in the area of exploring occupational therapists' roles as change agents has not focused on the actions occupational therapists take in their everyday practice. The aim of this study was to identify the change agent actions occupational therapists take in their day-to-day work.   

Method: In partnership with the CAOT-Quebec chapter, a one-day change agent workshop was provided to Quebec occupational therapists followed by an evaluation. 103 occupational therapists participated in the study and answered questions about their involvement in change agent work. 

Results: 

• The most commonly reported change agent actions in the workplace included communicating, informing and collaborating, while participants reported rarely engaging in social actions related to mass media and public speaking.

• Targeted audiences for change agent actions included patients' families, colleagues, managers, and political bodies. 

• Occupational therapists who had taken change agent training in the past were more likely to engage in network creation, creating partnerships, giving a speech and planning an event compared to those who had no previous training. 

• Those who participated in the training most commonly worked in rehabilitation, community care or in-patient hospital settings. 

Conclusion: Occupational therapists play an important role as change agents, and appear to take a wider range of clinical and social actions when change agency training has been provided. There are a range of intended audiences who occupational therapists can target with their efforts, which will each lead to different types of changes taking place. 

Implications for OT: 

• Clinical efforts to be an agent of change commonly include communication, informing others, and collaboration. 
• Participating in higher education and change agent training can increase the variety of actions one will take and the comfort in different sociopolitical contexts. 
• Occupational therapists are well positioned to enact change agency work within their clinical work as well as other settings such as education and political engagements. 

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