Community-Based Occupational Therapy for Syrian Refugees to Improve Social Participation and Occupational Justice

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Community-Based Occupational Therapy Intervention: This intervention is a structured community-based occupational therapy program developed based on the Participatory Occupational Justice Framework. The program is designed to support Syrian refugees' engagement in meaningful daily activities, improve access to community resources, enhance social participation, and promote empowerment and self-determination. The intervention consists of ten group-based sessions delivered over five weeks in community settings. Sessions include activity-based learning, guided group discussions, skills development, and experiential participation in real-life contexts. The content focuses on daily life activities, social roles, community participation, stress management, and access to social and institutional resources. The intervention is delivered by an occupational therapist and emphasizes participatory, rights-based, and culturally sensitive approaches to address occupational injustice and support functional well-being.

Information Session on Daily Life in Turkey: This intervention consists of a single, standardized informational session provided to participants in the control group. The session includes general information about daily life in Turkey, such as basic social, cultural, and institutional structures. No occupational therapy intervention, skill training, or activity-based therapeutic content is provided. The session is intended to control for attention and contact time without influencing occupational performance, participation, or occupational justice outcomes.

Study summary

This study aims to examine the effects of a community-based occupational therapy intervention on occupational justice, participation in daily life activities, occupational performance, satisfaction, and overall functioning among Syrian refugees living in Turkey. Refugees frequently encounter social, economic, and environmental barriers that restrict their engagement in meaningful daily activities and negatively affect their sense of autonomy, belonging, and participation. Addressing these complex challenges requires interventions that extend beyond individual skill development and actively target social participation, access to community resources, and justice in everyday occupations.

In this study, a structured community-based occupational therapy intervention has been developed based on the Participatory Occupational Justice Framework. The intervention is designed to enhance participants' access to community resources, support engagement in meaningful daily activities, strengthen social participation, and promote empowerment and self-determination. The program consists of group-based, activity-oriented sessions implemented within real-life community settings to facilitate contextualized learning and participation.

A total of 16 adult Syrian refugees are planned to be enrolled in the study and assigned to either an intervention group or a control group using a parallel-group design. Participants in the intervention group will receive a five-week community-based occupational therapy program comprising ten structured sessions. Participants in the control group will receive a single informational session focusing on daily life and available services in Turkey. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline and immediately after the intervention using standardized measures of occupational justice, occupational performance and satisfaction, participation in daily activities, and overall functioning.

The findings of this study are expected to provide evidence regarding the effectiveness of community-based occupational therapy interventions in promoting occupational justice, participation, and functional well-being among refugee populations. The results are also anticipated to contribute to the development of rights-based, inclusive, and participation-focused rehabilitation practices for forcibly displaced communities.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Occupational Justice Scale for Refugees (OJS-R) — Baseline (pre-intervention) and immediately after the 5-week intervention period
  Occupational justice will be assessed using the Occupational Justice Scale for Refugees (OJS-R), a 30-item interviewer-administered scale developed to evaluate occupational injustice experiences among refugee populations. The scale includes five subdomains: occupational deprivation, occupational alienation, occupational marginalization, occupational discrimination, and occupational imbalance. Higher total scores indicate higher levels of occupational injustice. The measure will be used to evaluate changes in participants' occupational justice perceptions following the intervention.

Trial sites (1)

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