Awareness and knowledge of final year health science students on Occupational Therapy in a public university in Ghana

Background: Occupational therapists play a major role in the healthcare team in the provision of holistic care to patients. Successful healthcare depends on collaboration and understanding among health professionals and recognition of each health professional ’s role in a team. Objective: The study aimed to determine the awareness and knowledge of final-year health sciences students of the University of Ghana on occupational therapy (OT). Methods: A cross-sectional study was employed by means of a questionnaire with final year students in the Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health Professional programmes (physiotherapy, dietetics, radiography, and medical laboratory sciences) of the University of Ghana. Participants were randomly selected and requested to complete a questionnaire. Data was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 23.0. Results: The results showed an overall OT awareness of 94.66% (n = 195/206). About 35.0% (n = 69/206) of participant learned about OT as a health profession through other means rather than their academic curriculum. Collectively, participants demonstrated an average actual knowledge on OT services of 14.43 ± 3.17. The results also showed that, the importance participants accorded OT profession in the healthcare team did not depend on their knowledge on OT scope of practice (r_s = 0.162, p > 0.05). Conclusion: Actions should be channelled towards enabling health science students to learn about OT and other health professions through their university curriculum. Furthermore, OT students should endeavour to sensitise fellow health science students on the unique roles and responsibilities of the OT profession in the healthcare team.