ABSTRACT
Psychiatric occupational therapists have experienced multiple changes in role expectations with the move from long term care to short term care. The role expectation changes noted in the chapter are those that have been observed in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Short-term care has brought with it its own set of role expectations changing many aspects of the occupational therapists' previously-held notions about their roles in the hospital setting. Expectation generated stress is used by Kahn and Quinn to apply to situations in which inadequacies in the pattern of role expectations prevent the functions of role from being carried out. Each occupational therapist interacts with multiple role sets daily. These role sets include hospital administration, the occupational therapy department, the unit staff, the patients, and one's own interaction with one's role. Discharge planning and community resource awareness have long been an expectation of the occupational therapist.
