The Busy Recreation Therapists Guide to Evidence Based Practice

Recreation Therapists are busy people.

We usually get to work (coffee in hand) and hit the floor running.

We attend patient treatment teams, complete documentation, and answer never-ending emails. When we finally get to facilitate our groups, we tend to pull from our bucket of trusted activities. But do we spend any of our limited time thinking critically about our go-to interventions?

Folks, for the longest time I have used my “busy schedule” as an excuse… but let’s get real…

WE. NEED. TO. BE. IMPLEMENTING. EVIDENCE. BASED. PRACTICE

By using evidenced based practice (EBP), Recreation Therapists ensure that we are providing the best possible health care to those we serve and are moving the profession forward.

For today’s post, I want to start at ground level and build our way up to the penthouse suite of evidence based practice.

Keep reading to learn the steps to evidence based practice along with some time-saving tips to ensure you are doing what is best for your clients, yourself, and the field of therapeutic recreation.

What is Evidence Based Practice?

If you are anything like I was at one point in my life, you are probably wondering what the heck is EBP?

According to a D.L Sackle (1996), evidence based practice means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.

There are three components that when all properly implemented result in evidence-based practice:

1. Patient Preferences – unique preferences, concerns, and expectations of those we serve

2. Current Research – used to determine whether a method or intervention should be used

3. Clinical Expertise – refers to the clinician’s cumulated education, experience, and clinical skills

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Is Evidence Based Practice Important?

Yes, evidence based practice is very important. Here are a few reasons why EBP is so crucial:

By following the three components of evidence-based practice we are doing everything we can to help those we serve reach their desired outcomes faster.
Healthcare is a business. There is an increasing demand for health care dollars to be spent wisely. Along with every other health care profession, we must prove bang for their buck.
Being a member of an interdisciplinary team, you need to be able to communicate with your co-works. Evidence based practice is a common language that can bring us all together.
EBP MOVES THE PROFESSION OF THERAPEUTIC RECREATION FORWARD… I know you felt that one in your soul…

If you have been in the world of Recreation Therapy for a minute, I am sure you have heard the name Norma Stumbo (she is kind of the Beyonce of the RT world).

Accordioning to Dr. Stumbo, recreation therapy programs that are designed based on tradition, the therapists’ interest, or pure inertia are unlikely to help their clients reach their goals. I know we are all busy – but if the Ms. Knowles of Recreation Therapy in saying this – it must be true.

How to use Evidence Based Practice

Here are five simple steps along with time-saving tips on how to fit the evidence based practice process into your very busy schedule:

1. Ask a Question (Ponder it)

Questions are usually triggered by client/patient issues you want to solve. When you ask your question, make sure you have the 5 W’s and H: who, what, where, when, why, and how?

Example: Would adolescents in an all-female behavioral health treatment facility benefit from the daily and proactive use of therapeutic essential oils to reduce challenging behaviors associated with PTSD?

Time-Saving Tip – Take the guessing out of it your research question is going to give you the answer you need! Use this great resource to learn how to create a great research question.

2. Find your Evidence (Search it)

This step is all about gathering research to help answer your question from step #1.

There are several places you can go to do that:

Not all research is created equally. The golden egg of research includes systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Check out this systematic review of recreation therapy as a treatment for older adults with depression as an example.

Time-Saving Tip – Learn how to boolean= Lifesaver

3. Review the Evidence (Consider it)

When you have collected all your research its time to read through it with a critical eye.

As you are reading, ask yourself these questions:

Does this help to study answer the questions I had?
Can I use this information in my daily work to serve better?
Was this article valid, reliable and peer reviewed?

Time-Saving Tip – I suggest breaking up the research articles to 10-15 minutes of reading each day. I try to do some reading first thing in the morning before I am carried away with whatever the day brings.

Evidence Based Practice

4. Implement (Do it)

This is the fun part – It is time to take your newly acquired knowledge and incorporate it into your recreation therapy practice. Program development par-tay!

Time-Saving Tip – Do you know another Recreation Therapist you could reach out and talk to about a similar program they ran? We don’t have to reinvent the wheel – we just have to ensure whatever we plan is meeting the specific needs of our clients. It’s 2019, hop on Insta and share resources!

5. Evaluate the Outcome (Review it)

Once your program has been up and running for a bit, its time to evaluate and see if you actually met the desired outcomes. Here is a whole resource on measuring outcomes.

Bottom Line

I’ll be honest with you. Before this post, I thought I knew everything there was to know about EPB. It became very clear throughout my research, that I did not.

Please – Let’s not be too hard on ourselves (or others). Instead, let’s continue to encourage each other to grow and learn.

As Recreation Therapists in 2019, we owe it to ourselves and those we serve to be implementing evidence based practice.

When we make EBP part of our everyday practice we provide higher quality services and meet the demands of accountability in healthcare industries.

I would love to know how you are successfully implementing evidence based practice?

Share with the community below 🙂

Evidence Based Practice