Barriers to engagement with rehabilitative services: a scoping review

Purpose: Engagement with healthcare services in general can present an ongoing challenge for rehabilitation teams. Poor engagement with services often leads to unsuccessful treatments and the need to re-refer for further intervention. Despite engagement and non-attendance from a primary care perspective being regularly discussed in research, the issue has received less attention within the secondary/ tertiary care sectors around the multitude of different rehabilitative teams. Whilst the impact of poor engagement is well known, there are inconsistencies. The aim of this review was to map the current understanding around the issues which influence engagement with rehabilitation services, with the hope of identifying areas for more detailed onward investigation.