Promoting the use of outcome measures by an educational programme for physiotherapists in stroke rehabilitation: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Abstract

In this pilot trial it was not proven that tutor expertise in stroke care influences the actual use of outcome measures, but it warrants a future study with sufficient power to investigate the influence of the tutor.

A systematic review of interventions to increase the use of standardized outcome measures by rehabilitation professionals

“…Two of the studies were in an outpatient pediatric setting (28,34). Seven of the studies targeted physiotherapists only (1,28,29,31,(33)(34)(35) , one study occurred with community mental health professions (unspecified but occupational therapy assumed) (25), one study each targeted occupational therapists only (30) and prosthetists only (27), and one study involved physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists (32). While nine studies reported various provider characteristics such as age, gender, years of experience, work location, and caseload levels, one study reported only the professional discipline of the providers (33), and one study reported only 'mental health providers' without specifying any further provider characteristics (25).…”

“…Nine of the eleven studies had an overall quality rating of weak. Two studies had an overall rating of moderate (31,35). Only one of the studies had strong ratings for any of the six components that made up the overall quality rating (31).…”

“…Two studies had an overall rating of moderate (31,35). Only one of the studies had strong ratings for any of the six components that made up the overall quality rating (31). Of the nine studies that were rated as weak, one was weak in all categories (30) and the other eight were weak in either four or five of the six categories (1,25,(27)(28)(29)(32)(33)(34).…”

“…The two that did not do this (25,33) applied indirect education through the dissemination of materials. One of the studies that 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 F o r P e e r R e v i e w 13 employed direct educational strategies tested two different types of strategies head-to-head: education delivered by experts versus non experts (31). Three of the studies applied audit and feedback in combination with either education (32) or dissemination of materials (25,33).…”

“…Four studies reported a dose for all elements of the intervention. Specifically, these were reported as: audit and feedback plus education for 25 weekly session (32); audit and feedback plus education on one occasion (33); four interactive half-day sessions over 4-5 months and provision of a toolkit on one occasion (29); five two-hour evening education sessions over 14 weeks (31). Of the remaining seven that did not provide full information on the dose of the intervention, four (28,30,34,35) provided some but not all information (ie.…”