How to Get Continuing Education Credit for Reading Journal Articles
Think about what questions you have in your practice area
Do you have a question about a certain intervention or diagnosis that has been on your mind for a while? Maybe you have a particular client in mind that you are getting stuck with.
Take that opportunity to create a focused search using the following steps below. If you’re not sure where to start, try using this self-assessment to guide you.
2. Use an open access journal, Google Scholar, or ProQuest (through NBCOT) to find articles
Here are some examples of open access journals that relate specifically to occupational therapy.
There are many open access journals (and a lot more have popped up since the beginning of Covid). These journals allow you to read full-text articles without having to subscribe to a journal. A huge barrier to evidence-based practice is access to journals however a lot of times you can find a good number of articles in open-access journals.
3. Use a PICO question to guide your search
Here is an example of how you can use a PICO question.
For more information on creating PICO questions see this blog post.
Using Boolean search terms like autism AND play AND intervention allows for a better search. Use AND when you are adding a keyword and OR if you want to add a work that is similar to include (i.e. autism OR autism spectrum disorder).
4. Read the article and create an outline
Read through the article and pull out the most important points. I like to label each heading of my outline as follows:
Background
Research Question
Methods
Data Analysis
Results
Conclusion
Limitations
How it Applies to My Practice or “Takeaways”
This step will make it easier to do the next step when working towards using articles for CEUs/PDUs.
5. Fill out a report form (on NBCOTs website)
Use this form to complete the process and to keep it as part of your records. Journal articles depend on the state or country for whether they count as credit. For my state of PA in the US, they do not award CEUs for reading research articles (which is a bummer because I’ve read a lot!). But for NBCOT across the board, they allow for journal articles to be used as PDU credit when you include this report.
Even though it may not count for state licensure credit, reading articles is a great way to stay up to date and this guide can help take you from clinical questions to using specific information from an article in practice.
Want to stay up to stay quicker and come alongside other OTs working to implement research into their OT practice?
Check out the OT Graphically Library Here