Occupational Therapy Students' Choice of Gender-Differentiated Activities for Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

Twenty-six female and seven male first-year occupational therapy students participated in an investigation into the prescription of therapeutic activities for men and women. The data collected, using fictional case studies as response opportunities, supported the experimental hypothesis that students would choose activities for patients on the basis of gender. Subjects tended to select traditional sex-role differentiated activities and their own comments about why this was so were used as a basic for discussion. This article, the last in a series of three, contributes to the debate on sex-role stereotyping, mental health and occupational therapy in psychiatry.