Souto-Gómez, Ana-IsabelTalavera Valverde, Miguel ÁngelGarcía-de-la-Torre, María PMárquez-Álvarez, Luis-Javier2023-03-132023-03-132023-02-20Souto-Gómez AI, Talavera-Valverde MÁ, García-de-la-Torre MD, Márquez-Álvarez LJ. Exploring Occupational Therapists' Professional Identity: A Q-Method Study. Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Feb 20;11(4):630.2227-9032http://hdl.handle.net/2183/32695[Abstract+ (1) Background: This study examines the nature of the rarely studied factors of the professional identity from an occupational therapist’s perspective. (2) Methods: Q-methodology was applied to identify the different perspectives. Participants were selected through a non-probability sampling procedure in the whole Spanish territory. Different assessment tools were considered, in order to develop an ad hoc tool which had 40 statements classified into four categories. A factor analysis was performed by applying Ken-Q analysis v.1.0. (3) Results: Thirty-seven occupational therapists participated in the study. Their diverse approaches revealed different perspectives that influence the professional identity of occupational therapists: professional identity, due to referents, a grey field on professional identity, reaffirming a common professional identity, the role of education and mentors on professional identity and the outcome of ongoing training, in order to develop the abovementioned identity. (4) Conclusions: Once the different aspects of the professional identity have been understood, future educational initiatives can be designed to adapt curricula to the professional scene.spaCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Occupational therapyOccupational therapistsProfessional identityProfessionalQ-methodjournal articleopen access