Exploring Integration of Occupational Therapy Services for the Refugee Population

As a result of many global conflicts and environmental instabilities, the refugee population is increasing in numbers throughout the world including North America. Refugees experience a distinct susceptibility to systemic barriers (Matlin, Depoux, Flahault, Saso, & Schütte 2018). As such, refugees suffer from a higher rate of physical and mental stress as a result of extreme suffering from the accumulative effects of physical and mental trauma, geological and cultural displacement (Hameed, S., Sadiq, A., & Din, A. U., 2019; Jamil et al., 2007). This unique and often neglected segment of the population can benefit from occupational therapy services to meet the demands within host communities. In order to serve this population, there is a need to understand their unique experiences so that their occupational needs may be addressed and met by the OT profession. This qualitative research approach utilizing a mixed-methods survey questionnaire was designed to capture current refugee integration service structure and to propose the role occupational therapy might serve to help this growing population.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesspring2021/1013/thumbnail.jp