Currently submitted to: JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies
Date Submitted: Dec 5, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 23, 2025 - Feb 17, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Telehealth in Occupational Therapy during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the delivery of occupational therapy (OT) services in-person on a global scale, accelerating the adoption of telehealth. During this time, there was a surge of OT focussed research on the use of telehealth. Synthesising this literature can be helpful to inform routine practice and to prepare for future disruptions to in-person care, including natural disasters, severe weather, and pandemics.
Objective:
This scoping review maps the literature on telehealth in OT during COVID-19, focusing on setting, study design, participants, clinical fields, modalities, interventions, outcomes, benefits, barriers, and facilitators.
Methods:
Using Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, we searched seven databases and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed articles. Eligibility criteria included: English and French papers reporting on telehealth-delivered OT services during COVID-19, across all ages, conditions, settings, and participant groups.
Results:
From 4,810 records screened, 43 articles were included. Most articles originated from high-income economies and were small in scale (mean=136; median=15). Most were descriptive (e.g., cross-sectional surveys, qualitative studies, and experiential reports). Participant groups were diverse, including OTs, clients, caregivers, and others (e.g., teachers). Telehealth in OT was most reported in pediatric neurodevelopmental and mental health fields, followed by adult mental health. Most articles described synchronous telehealth and the remaining a mixed approach. Only 40% reported on measurable outcomes, with most of these demonstrating statistically significant results. Reported benefits included improved accessibility, personalization, continuity of care, safety in terms of infection prevention, family engagement, and social support. Perceived barriers included technology access and literacy, lack of physical presence, limitations of the home environment, client and caregiver factors, and organizational challenges. Facilitators included home and intervention adaptations, digital skills and training, caregiver involvement, communication strategies, and organizational and system-level support.
Conclusions:
Telehealth helps to increase access to OT; however, therapists face barriers in using this approach especially for some interventions and populations. More research is needed on how best to implement telehealth across different populations and contexts. Clinical Trial: n.a.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.