Scoping review of mentoring research in the occupational therapy literature, 2002-2018

Introduction Mentoring affords personalised learning for professional growth. Research across disciplines has shown mentoring to positively affect behaviour, attitude, motivation, job performance, organisational commitment, and career productivity and success. This study was conducted to provide an overview of research focussed on mentoring practices and related outcomes specific to the occupational therapy profession. Methods This study follows Arksey and O'Malley's five main scoping review stages. PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ERIC, Social Services Abstract, ScienceDirect and ProQuest databases were searched for mentoring practices in the occupational therapy profession. Inclusion criteria were: empirical studies of mentoring provided to occupational therapy students, practitioners, faculty and researchers, published in English between January 2002 and December 2018. Studies of mentoring provided to occupational therapy clients were excluded. Data were extracted for quantitative information about study characteristics and qualitative information about mentoring processes and outcomes. Results Of 1313 retrieved resources, 20 empirical studies were selected for analysis. In these studies, occupational therapy entry-level students, post-professional students, educators, researchers and clinicians were mentored in education, research and clinical areas of practice. Mentoring definitions, rationale, approaches and measurement methods were varied. Mentoring processes and relationships were facilitated by mechanisms of creating a plan, using mentoring strategies and providing support. Common defining terms, mechanisms and outcomes of mentoring were extracted and categorised into: support, learning, process and relationship. Mentoring outcomes were related to knowledge acquisition and translation, professional behaviours, increased productivity and professional networking. Conclusion This scoping review presented commonalities of mentoring definitions, mechanisms and outcomes in empirically studied mentoring experiences and programmes in the occupational therapy profession. Methodological gaps in this research emphasise the need for occupational therapy practitioners and researchers to continue researching mentoring experiences by integrating theoretical frameworks, uniform definitions, rigorous design and standardised measures to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring.