Changes in direct patient care from physiotherapy student to new graduate

ABSTRACT

Background: Clinical placements offer students an opportunity to provide direct patient care and are essential to develop safe and effective practitioners. It is unknown what changes in direct patient care activities are required as students transition to graduate physiotherapists.

Objective: To determine the change in direct patient care activity from physiotherapy student to new graduate.

Methods: Five hospitals provided clinical activity data from 412 physiotherapy students and 50 new graduate physiotherapists working in four physiotherapy clinical areas.

Main Outcome Measures: Percentage of day spent in direct patient care, average occasions of service (OOS) per day and average length of one OOS (LOOS) for physiotherapy students and new graduates.

Results: Students spent less time during their day providing direct patient care (24%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 19 to 29), performed fewer OOS (4.4, 95%CI 4.0 to 4.8) and had longer LOOS (18 min, 95%CI 13 to 23) compared to new graduates. This was consistent across all clinical areas.

Conclusions: Physiotherapy student caseload is half that of a new graduate physiotherapist, with students taking longer to complete an OOS. Given this disparity in workload, active stakeholder engagement is essential to implement strategies that support and optimize the transition from student to graduate.

KEYWORDS:

• Physiotherapy
• professional education
• clinical competence
• professional competence
• quantitative evaluation

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Metro South Hospital and Health Service, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, Townsville Hospital and Health Service, Darling Downs Hospital and Health Service and the Australian Catholic University in the conduct of this research. We also wish to acknowledge members of the Physiotherapy Student Contribution to Physiotherapy Services within Queensland Health Steering Committee.

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Directors of Physiotherapy Services Queensland, Clinical Education and Training Initiative Grant.