Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of Malaysian Occupational Therapists in managing behavioural issues of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) / Yufaizal Yusuf

Introduction: The management of children with ADHD requires the Malaysian occupational therapist to be well equipped with knowledge, attitude and practices of effective intervention. The purpose of this study is to determine the level of KAP among occupational therapist in managing behavioural issues of children with ADHD. Method: A cross-sectional method and quantitative approach were used in this study to discover all the four main objectives. Sets of questionnaires reflecting on these issues were sent to Malaysian Occupational Therapist by using Google Form platform. However, there were only n = 137 participants who had agreed to take part in this study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The survey questionnaire is Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) that adapted from the previous study done by Oh, Kim, & Kim (2008) with the Cronbach alpha is .794 indicates a high level of internal consistency. Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis was used to the differences between variables. Spearman Correlation was used to explore the strength of KAP. Regression used to predict the best KAP among Malaysian occupational Therapist. Result: Moderate level of Knowledge in managing ADHD whereby 66.82% answered correctly of ADHD, positive attitude toward management and highly confident in practices when applying clinical practices. There was a significant correlation between Practices and age group (r = 0.328), Practices and working experiences as OT (r = 0.268), same goes knowledge and Practices with working experiences in pediatric setting (r = 0.342). However, there is no significant correlation between KAP with Gender, Educational level, working setting and frequency involvement in the management of ADHD children. The Spearman rho indicates that low correlation between knowledge and practices (r = 0.32) and positive correlation between attitude and practices (r = 0.24). The results of the regression indicated that both predictors contributed a significant positive linear relationship to the model where the level of knowledge (P = 0.001) and level of attitude is (P = 0.002). 14.4% of the variation in the level of practices is explained by the level of knowledge and level of attitudes according to the multiple linear regression model (R2 = 0.144). Conclusion: Although most occupational therapists in this survey agreed that the behavioural management of children with ADHD is important in the profession of occupational therapy there are still many issues that need to be concerned and resolved regarding the therapist's knowledge, attitude and practices among Malaysian occupational therapist.