Authors (including presenting author) :
Wong CMY, Lau FCA
Affiliation :
Department of Occupational Therapy, Pok Oi Hospital, New Territories West Cluster
Introduction :
COVID-19 hits the world and disturbed our usual normal practice in all walks of life since late 2019. Occupational therapy student clinical placement is one of the profession, like other disciplines in nursing or medical student, was much affected. It was transformed to the blended online mode since June 2020 and was returned to face-face clinical training June 2021.
Objectives :
The purpose of this retrospective descriptive study was conducted from 3 Jan 2022 to 7 Jan 2022 to collect the feedback from Clinical educator(CE), Co-CE and all mentors who were involved in clinical placement training from March 2020 to June 2021 on the challenges and barriers of this online mode of clinical placement for Tung Wah College Occupational Therapy Student during COVID-19 pandemic in Pok Oi Hospital.
Methodology :
This was a retrospective review using google forms in form of survey-based questionnaires were sent via HA internal mail on 3 Jan 2020 to Clinical educator(CE), Co-CE and all mentors who were involved in clinical placement training during the pandemic and were expected to be returned by 7 Jan 2022. A convenient sampling of 13 people, including CE, Co-CE and mentors were invited to participate. First part of data collected were the socio-demographic of participants such as gender and years of clinical experience. The second part of data were feedback related to barriers and challenges faced during pandemic and were collected.
Result & Outcome :
Data set from 3 to 7 Jan 2022 of 8 participants, return rate of 61.5% were collected. There were 2 males and 6 females. Most participants (87.5%) have rich clinical experiences over 10 years, (25%) above 30 years. All had received their highest academic experience as MSc degree holders. The top three challenges and barriers identified was “Not familiar in operation of online technology” (62.5%), “More stringent in infection control precautions” (50%) and “Be flexible in coordination work” (50%). Easiness of Blackboard provided by TWC was regarded as easy to use. Other identified common online tools to be used were through WhatsApp and zoom platform bedsides Blackboard. Most participants (62.5%) commented that the use of online teaching was regarded as somehow satisfactory. All participants disagreed that message conveyed via online was still clear despite the shifting from face-face to online phase. All agreed that online clinical placement cannot be replaced by face-face clinical training. Participants revealed that face to face clinical teaching was better and more effective than blended online mode, much coordination among staff was essential to provide more opportunities for students to learn safely under various restriction during COVID difficult situation. As a conclusion, this retrospective survey highlighted the challenges and barriers on occupational therapy student clinical placement training during the pandemic. The blended online mode clinical placement training is one of the solution to cater for the continuation of training needs of occupational therapy students during COVID.
