Developing Integrated Education Programmes for Occupational Therapy: The Problem of Subject Streams in a Problem-Based Course

Much has been written in the past 15 years by medical educators on problem-based learning (PBL) in medical schools. The other health professions, such as occupational therapy, social work and nursing, have been slow in taking up the challenge and developing PBL programmes to suit their professional needs. The purpose of this article is to summarise previous developments and offer a schema for the preparation of curricula in occupational therapy. No schema for PBL has previously been published, so it is proposed that this attempt will be able to be adapted to a wide range of courses using the acknowledged educational concepts implicit in integrated, problem-based programmes.