The awareness and use of outcome measures by South African physiotherapists

Abstract

Physiotherapists as well as otherhealth care providers a reunder pressure to provide evidence for the effectiveness of their interventions. Therefore it has become necessary to employ standardized androbust outcome measures in clinical practice. The objective of this study was to determine the awareness of and use of outcome measures (OM’s)amongst physiotherapists in South Africa. A survey was conducted in2004 using a self-developed electronic questionnaire consisting of 18questions, both open- and closed-ended. A population-based sample consisting of 1102 members on the email address list of the South Africa Society of Physiotherapy (SASP) was used. Data analysis consisted ofboth descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis for the open-endedquestions. The response rate was 15.2% (n=168). Ninety one percent of respondents reported to have heard of OM’s while 84% reported using OM’s regularly. Impairment related measures were predominantly in use. The two main themes that emerged from therespondents’comments related to reasons forusing OM’s were “effective clinical practice”(82%) and “evidence-basedpractice” (15%). Time constraints and lack of sufficient knowledge in the use of OM’s, were cited as obstacles tousing OM’s. These findings have implications forthe South African physiotherapy community in terms of education,continuous professional development (CPD) and future research in the usage frequency of OM’s.

A survey on the use of outcome measures by musculoskeletal physiotherapist’s in India

“…Literature has shown that few rehabilitation centres use standardised OMs in their daily clinical practice (Inglis, Faure, and Frieg, 2008). Garland, Kruse, and Aarons (2003) found that the health professionals preferred using their own judgements and instincts to evaluate the patient's progress as they found that OMs make the process more complicated.…”

Outcome measurement for orthopaedic trauma inpatients

“…Only two of the scales tested "time to administer" and this is of concern as this administrative burden can be barrier to the use of outcome measures in clinical practice. As the use of outcome measures still requires facilitation among South African physiotherapists (Inglis et al 2008), researchers developing new outcome measures should attempt to minimize the barriers associated with the regular application of outcome measures in clinical practice. This will hopefully facilitate an increase in the uptake of outcome measurements in clinical practice.…”

“…Internationally, physiotherapy professional bodies are actively involved in promoting the use of outcome measures, although a recent study indicated that outcome measures are still underutilized by physiotherapists in South Africa (Inglis et al 2008). In South-Africa, there is a dire need to promote the use of outcome measures as there is increased pressure to demonstrate our effective- (Grimmer et al 2005).…”

“…ness to government and private health funders (Inglis et al 2008). Clinicians should therefore at least monitor patient progress using the most appropriate outcome measures which will reflect on the effectiveness of an intervention as well as the patient's perspectives about the intervention and outcomes (O'Sullivan and Schmitz 1994).…”

“…In South Africa, trauma is the fourth most common health burden (Inglis et al 2008), and therefore trauma inpatients constitute a significant proportion of patients treated by local physiotherapists. Traumatic neuro-musculoskeletal dis -…”