ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study is aimed at identifying research trends in occupational therapy in Korea, focusing on articles published in the Korean Journal of Occupational Therapy. Methods: For 213 articles published in the Korean Journal of Occupational Therapy from 2016 to 2020, the type of research, evidence level, field of research, information on the first author, type of study participation, and types of research variables were analyzed. Results: As a result of the analysis, descriptive studies accounted for the highest number at 33.80%, and among the levels of evidence, level 4 was the highest at 47.89%. In addition, the number of studies at levels 1 and 4 increased compared to 2016. As for the research field, general occupational therapy was the highest at 28.64%, and the first author position of published papers was the highest for graduate students at 33.64%. Among the studies that included actual subjects, those targeting adults were the largest in number at 54.95%, and the highest diagnosis of the study subjects was a stroke. As the study variable, occupation/activity-based occupational therapy was 15.28% for the descriptive study, and as an independent variable in the experimental study, occupation/activity-based occupational therapy was 28.30%. In addition, as a dependent variable, the motor function was high at 26.36%. Conclusion: Through this study, it was possible to confirm the improvement of the level of evidence and the diversity of research fields of occupational therapy in Korea. It is therefore hoped that the results of this study will be used as reliable data for setting future research directions.