Social participation in occupational therapy: What are we talking about?

Abstract

This article presents the results of a systematic review, which aimed to investigate how researchers of Brazilian occupational therapy conceptualize social participation and which theoretical references are used or produced in the area to discuss this concept. The review consisted of searching the bibliographic productions of Brazilian occupational therapists available online in journals of the area, in LILACS and SciELO. There were 481 articles identified and, based on the exploratory and selective reading, 31 articles were considered for descriptive, critical and interpretive analysis, dealing with exploratory research and reflection/essay and case studies, experience reports, and bibliographic review. Researchers presented plurality in the definition and understanding of social participation; however, there's still no clarity about these different ways of approaching the concept, which can be justified by the inexistence or lack of a better theoretical-conceptual foundation. Other terms, such as “participation”; “sociocultural participation”; “community participation” and “political participation” were used as synonyms of social participation. This variation in the use of terms also resulted from the different fields of action in which the studies were carried out and from the theoretical references used. Some articles did not define social participation, even if the concept was the subject of research and/or analysis. However, they used references that help understand how their authors understand social participation. As in other fields of knowledge, occupational therapy presents a multiplicity of definitions or notions of the concept that is influenced by different sciences and disciplines, which also reveals consensus and divergence.