Enabling activity in palliative care: focus groups among occupational therapists

BACKGROUND: Activity participation may support clients in palliative care to maintain dignity and quality of life. Literature and policy documents state that occupational therapists should be part of the team in palliative care but provide limited guidance on how interventions should be employed. Thus, the aim was to describe occupational therapists’ experiences of enabling activity for seriously ill and dying clients. METHODS: In a descriptive, qualitative study, three focus groups with occupational therapists (n = 14) were conducted. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The findings showed that occupational therapists enabled activity in clients in palliative care while considering the client’s individual preferences. Motivation was seen to facilitate activity, while environmental restrictions were thought to act as barriers. The occupational therapists wanted to bring activities physically closer to the clients and felt a need for more client contact to enable activity. CONCLUSIONS: Occupational therapists’ interventions in palliative care include prioritizing and planning activities according to clients’ preferences and capacities. The individual nature of these activities makes it impossible to create standardized protocol for interventions, but the study results can be used to describe occupational therapists’ strategies and to guide their work, especially for occupational therapists without experience in palliative care. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12904-019-0394-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.