A condensed wheelchair skills training ‘bootcamp’ improves students’ self-efficacy for assessing, training, spotting, and documenting manual and power wheelchair skills

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the influence of a bootcamp training approach on students’ self-efficacy for assessing, training, spotting, documenting, and performing manual and power wheelchair skills.

Methods: In a pre-post design, students in their final year of an entry-to-practice master of occupational therapy program completed a two-day manual (6.5 h) and power (6.5 h) wheelchair skills bootcamp. Outcomes for self-efficacy (in assessing, training, spotting and documenting manual and power wheelchair skills; primary) and capacity (manual and power wheelchair skills; secondary) were collected at baseline and immediately after the bootcamp.

Results: Participants (n = 44) were 27.3 ± 4.3 years of age (41 female). Most students (81.8%) reported little previous experience using manual and power wheelchairs at baseline. Students’ self-efficacy for assessing, training, spotting, and documenting manual and power wheelchair skills improved by between 28.4% and 35.3%, representing a change from ‘somewhat confident’ to ‘fairly confident’. Students’ manual and power wheelchair skills capacity increased by 47.2% and 37.1% respectively.

Conclusions: Wheelchair skills training bootcamps may help prepare occupational therapy students to assess, train, spot, and document manual and power wheelchair skills of future clients, while improving students’ wheelchair skills capacity; thus may provide an option for integrating wheelchair skills training into the curriculum of time-intensive programs.

Implications for rehabiliation

• A two-day condensed wheelchair skills training workshop improves occupational therapy

• students’ self-efficacy for assessing, training, spotting and documenting power and

• manual wheelchair skills.

• A two-day condensed wheelchair skills training workshop improves occupational

• therapy students’ power and manual wheelchair skills.

• Self-efficacy is an indicator of future behaviours. Therefore, improving students’ selfefficacy

• for assessing training and documenting wheelchair skills may influence their future practice.

Keywords:

• Wheelchair
• self efficacy
• education
• self-help devices

Acknowledgement

Partial findings from this study have been accepted for presentation at the European Seating Symposium in Dublin, Ireland June 13–15, 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.