Award Date

May 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Occupational Therapy Doctorate

Department

Brain Health

First Committee Member

Donnamarie Krause

Second Committee Member

Jefferson Kinney

Number of Pages

94

Abstract

Occupational therapists have a unique set of skills that allow them to assess individuals with an acquired brain injury who have visual impairments. However, it is frequently neglected in practice owing to a lack of confidence, knowledge, or training. There is a need for a vision screening protocol that will help occupational therapists learn more about visual impairments in adults with an acquired brain injury (ABI) and feel more confident in their ability to identify them. This quality improvement capstone project was a feasibility study and consisted of a sample size of N = 6, utilizing a one group pretest-posttest method design. The data was obtained by administering pretest/post-test survey using Qualtrics. The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) was modified and adapted to this capstone project to assess occupational therapists’ self-efficacy in vision screenings. A parametric paired sample t-test was conducted to analyze the data. Six occupational therapists completed both surveys following the in-service presentation which revealed a significant difference in the mean modified General Self-Efficacy Scale (mGSES) score before (M=26.50, SD = 6.38) and after (M=33.50, SD = 4.04) receiving the inservice presentation, indicating a strong practical significance. The results suggest that by providing a presentation on a vision screening protocol tailored for occupational therapists can increase self-efficacy in identifying visual deficits in adults with an ABI. Successful implementation of the capstone project was the first step in building interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapists and optometrists. Additional training and education in vision screening is needed in occupational therapy for practitioners to feel more confident in identifying vision deficits in the occupational therapy process.

Keywords

acquired brain injury; occupational therapy; occupational therapy vision assessment; occupational therapy vision screening protocol; optometry

Disciplines

Occupational Therapy | Optometry

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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