Augmented behavioral medicine competencies in physical therapy students’ clinical reasoning with a targeted curriculum: a final-semester cohort-comparison study

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the two groups of physical therapy students.

	PT Students Receiving BMCC (n = 61)		PT Students Not Receiving BMCC (n = 90)
Characteristics^a	No.	%	No.	%
Sex
Women	44	72	54	60
Men	17	28	36	40
Age (y)^bc
22–24	36	59	53	59
25–29	22	36	26	29
30–34	1	2	8	9
35–41	2	3	3	3
Work experience in health care
Yes	43	70	64	71
No	18	30	26	29
Work experiences in other areas
Yes	54	88	82	91
No	7	12	8	9
Higher education studies other than physical therapy (credits^d)
None	30	49	52	58
>0–7.5	13	21	8	9
>7.5–30	9	15	13	14
>30–120	8	13	11	12
>120	1	2	6	7

PT: physical therapy BMCC: behavioral medicine content and competencies^aNo significant differences between groups existed.^bThe mean age was 25 y (SD 3.7) for students receiving BMCC curricula ^cThe mean age was 25 y (SD 3.5) for students not receiving BMCC curricula ^d1.5 credits correspond to 1 wk of full-time studies

Figure 1. Flow diagram of participants in the study and reasons for nonparticipation.

Table 2. Comparisons of the scores of the R4C instrument and the PABS-PT for the two groups of physical therapy students.

Outcomes		Mean (SD)^c		Between-Group Difference
R4C instrument: Domain and Subscale^a		PT Students Receiving BMCC (n= 61)	PT Students Not Receiving BMCC (n= 90)	95% CI	t	P	d
D1.1	PT: Knowledge	35.7 (4.8)	32.6 (4.7)	−4.6 to −1.5	−3.9	<.001	−0.65
D1.2	PT: Cognition	34.9 (5.8)	30.6 (5.6)	−6.1 to −2.4	−4.5	<.001	−0.74
D1.3	PT: Metacognition	37.4 (5.8)	38.4 (5.3)	−0.7 to 2.8	1.2	.25
D1.4	PT: Attitudes toward CR focused on behavior change	80.5 (10.4)	80.9 (9.9)	−3.0 to 3.6	−0.2	.84
D1.4	PT: Self-efficacy in CR focused on behavior change	70.4 (12.6)	64.8 (11.5)	−9.6 to −1.7	−2.8	.01	−0.47
D1.5	PT: Contextual factors	14.9 (4.7)	20.1 (4.4)	3.7 to 6.6	6.8	<.001	1.14
D2	Input from client	38.5 (7.2)	36.3 (5.7)	−4.4 to −0.1	−2.1	.04	−0.35
D3	Functional behavioral analysis	23.8 (2.9)	22.6 (2.5)	−2.0 to −0.3	−2.5	.01	−0.42
D4	Strategies for behavior change	19.6 (3.7)	18.0 (3.3)	−2.8 to −0.5	−2.8	.01	−0.47
PABS-PT: Subscale^b
Biomedical subscale		32.0 (6.1)	35.2 (7.4)	0.9 to 5.4	2.7	.01	0.46
Biopsychosocial subscale		38.7 (4.3)	38.2 (3.9)	−1.8 to 0.8	−0.8	.44

PT: physical therapy; BMCC: behavioral medicine content and competencies; ^a Theoretical min-max scores of the Reasoning 4 Change instrument: D1.1 = 8–48, D1.2 = 7–46, D1.3 = 8–48, D1.4 attitudes = 0–100, D1.4 self-efficacy = 0–100, D1.5 = 5–30, D2 = 0.6–66.1, D3 = 3.8–34.3, D4 = 0–36.4; ^b Theoretical min-max scores of the Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physical Therapists: Biomedical subscale = 10–60 and Biopsychosocial subscale = 9–54; ^c Comparisons of means with independent t-test, two-tailed.