ReviewThe British journal of occupational therapy2025
Factors affecting retention of occupational therapists in adult mental health service: A systematic review with narrative synthesis.
Review in The British journal of occupational therapy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- The occupational therapy role in acute psychiatric inpatient units in Australia: A mixed methods study.Australian occupational therapy journal · 2026Article
- Workplace peer support for continuing professional development in occupational therapy: A grounded theory.Australian occupational therapy journal · 2026Article
- Education of Occupational Therapists in Mental Health: A Global Survey of Educators Regarding Perceived Facilitators and Barriers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Caring About Care: The Paradox of Self-Care in Occupational Therapy.The American journal of occupational therapy : official publication of the American Occupational Therapy AssociationArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: There are over 43,000 occupational therapists across the United Kingdom, with mental health occupational therapists being acknowledged as a main workforce of OT services. However, staff shortages are occurring, and urgent action is needed to retain this important workforce. Methods: The systematic literature search was conducted in the CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus databases to identify research literature published since 2008. Due to the heterogeneity of the included studies, a narrative synthesis was utilized. Results: A total of 20 studies (21 papers) were included in the review. Five thematic factors - well-being at work, organizational work environment factors, job resources, supervision and staffing, along with various subtheme factors emerged from the synthesis. The findings suggest that retaining mental health occupational therapists is a complex issue, affected by many factors. The study emphasizes the triangular relationship among three aspects of well-being (job satisfaction, professional identity and burnout) at work and introduces the concept of a 'Retention Ecosystem'. This illustrates how subtheme factors interconnect and influence the retention of mental health occupational therapists. Conclusion: The retention of mental health occupational therapists is revealed to be a multifaceted challenge. There is a need for developing more targeted, meaningful and holistic strategies for retaining the current mental health occupational therapist workforce.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.