CALL FOR PAPERS: SPECIAL EDITION 2025

South African Journal of Occupational Therapy

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Edition 2025

 

Theme

Occupational Therapy Evidence for Impact: Why Evidence-Informed Practice Matters.

Guest Editorial Team

Thuli Mthembu

Randy P. McCombie

Marieta Visser

Denise Franzen

Submission deadline

31 December 2024

Timelines

• Deadline for submissions:  15 April 2025 (please submit to https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/sajot/ platform)
• Deadline for review:  1 June 2025
• Deadline for revisions:  30 July 2025
• Deadline for final editorial decision: 8 August 2025
• Publication date:  December 2025

Background

Occupational therapy matters. Occupational therapists are trained to make a difference in people’s lives, for the whole of their lives.  The profession is foundationally underscored by an understanding of people as occupational beings; the intrinsic link between what people do and their health and well-being; as well as context, and the complexity thereof. Hence an argument can be made for not only the importance of occupational therapy services but perhaps also the indispensability thereof.  However, especially since the NHI Bill has recently been signed into law, the impending implementation of NHI toward more equal access to healthcare continues to remind the South African occupational therapy community that our inclusion in this discourse remains at stake. This tension (but also opportunity) is largely because of a lack of evidence about the difference occupational therapy makes to the people who receive it.

An analysis of the type of articles submitted to SAJOT revealed a pattern of continuous low levels of evidence.  While the profession will never have enough to say about its deep and continuous emerging understanding of the complex relationships between the multiple aspects of the occupational therapy domain, we are clearly in urgent and desperate need of high-level evidence about how occupational therapy impacts people’s lives, and why it therefore, matters. The SAJOT editorial and guest editorial team is therefore calling all occupational therapists in South Africa to rise to the challenge, submitting journal articles for a special edition to be published in April 2025. Articles with Levels I and II evidence will be given preference, and the aim is to put forward a special edition that is more weighted toward these high levels of evidence. However, scientific articles that represent Level III empirical evidence will also be considered.

Furthermore, an invitation is extended for the submission of commentaries regarding not only the sub-themes below but also addressing the wicked problem of continuous limited high-level evidence in occupational therapy. This extension of the invitation intends to ignite a critical discourse in the profession on its way forward.

 

Sub-themes include:

• Impact (long/medium/short term) of occupational therapy on people’s quality of life
• Impact of occupational therapy services in primary healthcare settings
• How occupational therapy services reduce hospital (re-)admissions, and duration of hospitalization
• Cost-effectiveness of occupational therapy services
• Effective and/or inclusive occupational therapy service delivery to all stakeholders
• Effective collaborative/inter-professional practice
• Shared decision-making
• Evidence-based practice and Evidence-informed practice

Manuscript Information

Original, full-length research-based articles: innovative research that covers and provides empirical Level I evidence (e.g. systematic reviews, meta-analyses, randomised control trials), Level II evidence (e.g. cohort studies), as well as Level III evidence (quantitative and qualitative research studies).

See examples of possible overarching research questions by Franzsen and Pretorius (2023, http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S2310-38332023000100001&script=sci_arttext or https://sajot.org.za/index.php/sajot/article/view/874)

Original articles must fully comply with the South African Journal of Occupational Therapy guidelines for scientific articles. Additionally, commentaries or opinion pieces that cover the scope as outlined above and as per the South African Journal of Occupational Therapy guidelines, will also be considered. (All author guidelines are available at https://sajot.org.za/index.php/sajot/author-guidelines)