The Need for ‘Soft Skills’ in Occupational Therapy Curricula: A Descriptive Analysis of French Students’ Internship Comments

A competent occupational therapist needs soft skills. Although the French national occupational therapy (OT) curriculum lists 10 competences to be acquired, they do not include soft skills. The objectives of this study were to (a) Identify the proportion of soft skills in OT students’ internship comments written by internship tutors and (b) characterize the mentioned soft skills to help determine whether and which soft skills should be included in the new OT curriculum nationwide in France. This was a qualitative descriptive analysis of tutors’ comments on internship evaluations based on the framework method. Of the 1060 internship reports, 1035 (98%) for 217 students mentioned at least one soft skill. Taking initiatives was the most frequently mentioned (65%), followed by accountability (62%) and adaptability (46%). Taking initiatives, communication, and organization were the most negatively mentioned (respectively in 36%, 18% and 17% of the comments). The 36% of negative comments about taking initiatives concerned 86% of the students. Although soft skills are not taught in the French OT curriculum, most internship reports mentioned them. If students were taught these soft skills during their OT education, they may be better able to improve them throughout their training.