RTRU Senior Lecturer Dr Fi Graham is currently leading a project with colleagues Shruti Gadhari & Maryjane Mulcahey from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia to examine how well paediatric rehabilitation therapists adhere to a coaching protocol in everyday practice. This project follows on from Dr Graham’s earlier research into Occupational Performance Coaching (OPC), a goal directed intervention for working with caregivers of people with disabilities. Research has shown that OPC can be effective in helping caregivers to achieve their goals but it’s not clear if trained therapists can or do actually apply the coaching in the way it was intended. Knowing how well and how much an intervention is being applied (generally referred to as intervention fidelity) is really important for us to make sense of research findings, and as a check in our own practice if we are to achieve the same level change reported in research. In this study, therapists are rating their use of coaching on a 20-item checklist after they think they’ve used coaching. They can also ask a peer who has observed their coaching to rate them. In this way, the checklist is intended to guide therapists to self-correct their use of coaching, as well as measure how much coaching was used. Findings from this study will be shared in 2018 through publications, conferences and coaching workshops, as well as featuring in a manual for OPC.
Testing the fidelity of occupational performance coaching
