What are private sector physiotherapists’ perceptions regarding interprofessional and intraprofessional work for managing low back pain?

ABSTRACT

In the last decades, interactions between health professionals have mostly been discussed in the context of interprofessional teamwork where professionals work closely together and share a team identity. Comparatively, little work has been done to explore interactions that occur between professionals in contexts where traditionally formal structures have been less supporting the implementation of interprofessional teamwork, such as in the private healthcare sector. The objective of this study was to identify private sector physiotherapists’ perceptions of interprofessional and intraprofessional work regarding interventions for adults with low back pain. This was a cross-sectional survey of 327 randomly-selected physiotherapists. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. A majority of physiotherapists reported positive effects of interprofessional work for their clients, themselves and their workplaces. Proximity of physiotherapists with other professionals, clinical workloads, and client’s financial situation were perceived as important factors influencing the implementation of interprofessional work. Low back pain is a highly prevalent and disabling condition. The results of this study indicate that integrating interprofessional work in the management of low back pain in the private sector is warranted. Furthermore, the implementation of interprofessional work is viewed by practicing physiotherapists as dependent upon certain client-, professional- and organizational-level factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional
• low back pain
• physiotherapist
• private sector
• survey

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Isabelle Desrosiers for her assistance in recruiting participants and collecting the data. We are grateful to the study participants for their time and interest.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes

1. Further details on the survey as well as recruitment and data collection procedures have been described elsewhere (Perreault, Dionne, Rossignol, Poitras, & Morin, 2016).

2. Further socio-demographic and professional characteristics of participants have been described elsewhere (Perreault et al., 2016).

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported in part by a B.E. Schnurr Memorial Fund Research Grant administered by the Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada (2010–2012), as well as from a clinical research partnership in physiotherapy between the Quebec Rehabilitation Research Network (REPAR) and the Ordre professionnel de la physiothérapie du Québec (#10-11DMS-07). The first author received scholarships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail and the Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé (FRQS). The second author was an FRQS senior Research Scholar at the time of this study. None of the above-mentioned organizations were involved in any part of this study.