Evaluation of the reliability of diagnostic thinking inventory for physical therapist and of the development of clinical reasoning in physiotherapy students

Abstract

Background

Several instruments have been developed to assess clinical reasoning ability, regardless of specific knowledge. One of these instruments is the Diagnostic Thinking Inventory (DTI), used by doctors and medical students to determine their level of diagnostic clinical reasoning as it applies to the diagnosis.

Objective

The purposes of the pilot study were three-fold: (1) to assess internal consistency after adapting the DTI to the context of physical therapy (DTI-PT), (2) to assess the association between diagnostic clinical reasoning, self-assessment of clinical reasoning ability, and academic performance among physiotherapy students; and (3) to compare diagnostic clinical reasoning, self-assessment of clinical reasoning ability, and academic performance in the beginning and the end of the semester.

Method

A total of 40 physiotherapy students were assessed for the association of student performance, student clinical competence and DTI-PT between the beginning of August and the end of November 2017 in the discipline of assessment in physiotherapy.

Results

The results showed an improvement in the DTI-PT score and its sub-scales at the end of the semester. There was an improvement in the student clinical competence and in the students' performance score.

Conclusion

DTI-PT can be an effective tool to determine the clinical reasoning of physiotherapy students.

Keywords:

• Diagnostic thinking inventory
• clinical reasoning
• education
• physiotherapy students

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the reviewers for recommendations that significantly strengthened the article. In addition to the authors the English grammar reviewers, Jonathan Brian Barbo (USA) and Jeri Caye Barbo (USA).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).