Background: The Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) notes that well-being is a foundational aspect of occupational therapy (OT) practice and that OT treatment must address psychosocial/mental health aspects of the client (Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education, 2023). Despite the importance placed on mental health by ACOTE, practitioners have expressed dissatisfaction with the level of mental and emotional care they were able to provide to their clients, indicating an existing gap between ACOTE recommendations and OT clinical practice (Simpson et al., 2018).

Objective: To improve the level of care provided to clients through development of an educational resource for occupational therapists on mental health treatment.

ACOTE Area: The primary ACOTE area addressed within this capstone is education, with a main focus on creating an educational resource for use by occupational therapists within clinical practice. There is also a strong focus on the area of research, utilized to shape the created resource around current best practices and to explore the role of OT in addressing mental health. Furthermore, the author of this paper obtained a micro-credential certificate in mental health which strengthened the clinical skills needed to complete this capstone, thus tying in the ACOTE area of clinical practice skills.

Methods: The author developed background knowledge of the topic area through obtainment of a micro-credential as well as completion of a critically appraised topic (CAT) and rapid review. Additionally, two occupational therapists with experience in providing mental health treatment were recruited as experts for semi-structured interviews, with the resulting semantic thematic data analysis contributing to the initial draft of an educational resource for occupational therapists. The educational resource was shared with occupational therapists and students to collect feedback via a virtual survey. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistical analysis and inductive thematic analysis to make revisions to the resource.

Results: The CAT and rapid review each indicated several areas of intervention which could be utilized by occupational therapists to provide mental health treatment, including occupation-based, psychotherapeutic, and psychosocial interventions. Two expert opinion interviews further highlighted important areas of assessment and intervention. The initial draft of the educational resource was shared with 54 occupational therapists and occupational therapy students. Almost all (at least 96% for each of the three variables) indicated that the resource was usable, comprehensive, and applicable. Based on all data collected, the created educational resource was revised and finalized.

Conclusions and Relevance: The educational resource can be utilized by clinicians to explore and incorporate mental health treatment techniques into their practice, as indicated. Further development of the educational resource could further validate and/or diversify its use in the clinical setting. The outputs of this capstone contribute evidence to support OT’s role in the area of mental health and act as a tool to encourage clinicians to emphasize inclusion of mental health treatment in daily practice as well as pursue further learning in the area of mental health.