Career Exploration of Horticultural Therapy Professionals

The profession of Horticultural Therapy (HT) in the United States is considered an emerging profession yet one can find historical reference to the use of gardening and farming in health care in the early days of our country. Limited research has been reported on the profession, including studies on the characteristics and HT professional aptitudes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current conditions of the HT profession including demographic characteristics, employment, education, certification procedure, job satisfaction, and career aptitude. The target population was the membership of the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA). The membership was surveyed through an online questionnaire which was available from October to December 2012 via Axio Survey. An email was sent to all members with an email address (n = 584, 30 members did not have an email on record with AHTA and were not included in this study) that explained the survey and provided a direct link to the online questionnaire. The questionnaire included items from earlier studies on the profession and adapted questions from studies in other allied therapies. A total of 238 completed the survey for a 40% response rate. The demographics are similar to earlier studies with the majority being married (64%) females (81%), over 50 years of age (60%) and white (94%). The majority of the respondents graduated college (84%) with 12% reported their highest level of education being an associate’s degree, 39% earning a bachelor’s degree and 36% earning a Master’s degree.  Most respondents had been a member of AHTA for 10 years or less (71%), with 37% of those being members less than 5 years. Twelve percent of respondents had been members for more than 20 years. AHTA offers a voluntary professional registration program based on academic requirements and professional training. Sixty percent of respondents indicated they were professionally registered through AHTA, 27% had been registered for less than 5 years, 35% had been registered for 5–10 years, and 16% had been registered for more than 20 years. The respondents’ view of employment conditions was that jobs are not easy to find, there are few jobs, and pay is not comparable to peer professionals. The respondents indicated that the profession needed a competency-based certification and certification testing procedures. The results of this study are more similar than different from earlier studies thus many of the needs in establishing the profession have yet to be met.