BACKGROUND:
Social participation has been incorporated by
occupational therapists in
Brazil, and worldwide, as a professional concept to guide practice. The concept has been studied, defined, and constructed from multiple fields of
knowledge and can be defined as the social and political involvement of people in
social groups and /or public and
community spaces. There are different understandings of
social participation in
occupational therapy and the objective of this study was to explore how Brazilian
occupational therapists define
social participation in their fields of
knowledge.
METHOD:
Through application of the
Delphi technique, Brazilian
occupational therapy academics and professionals
who have worked in the
state of São Paulo,
Brazil, collaboratively responded to an online
questionnaire. In the
consultation phase,
occupational therapists wrote their
conceptions about
social participation and, in the
consensus phase, expressed their
opinions and judgements, in order to, in a collective
construction, establish a
consensus on the definition of
social participation.
RESULTS:
In the first round of the
consensus phase, 38 academics and 27 professionals participated and in the second round, 20 and 14, respectively. Results were analysed quantitatively, through the establishment of degrees of agreement for
conceptions arranged in
statements. Then, six categories of
analysis were built, which identified the multiple ways of
understanding social participation social participation and
social interactions,
social participation and
freedom of movement,
social participation as an experience in public and political
life,
social participation and
human activities,
social participation and the process of
social inclusion, and
social participation in the fields of
knowledge and practice in
occupational therapy.
CONCLUSION:
There are theoretical-conceptual differences in the understandings and uses of
social participation in
occupational therapy that delimit
specificity and design the identities of the profession in society. The need to discuss
knowledge production, accumulation, and dissemination and practices is debated.