Enhancing health care professionals’ and trainees’ knowledge of physical activity guidelines for adults with and without SCI

Abstract

Background: Health care providers (HCPs) are preferred sources of physical activity (PA) information; however, minimal research has explored HCPs’ knowledge of spinal cord injury (SCI) PA guidelines, and no research has examined HCP trainees’ PA guideline knowledge.

Objective: The current study explored HCPs’ and trainees’ initial knowledge of PA guidelines for both adults with SCI and the general population, and the utility of an event-based intervention for improving this knowledge.

Methods: Participants (HCPs n = 129; trainees n = 573) reported guideline knowledge for both sets of guidelines (SCI and general population) immediately after, one-month, and six-months following the intervention. Frequencies determined guideline knowledge at each timepoint, while chi-squared tests examined differences in knowledge of both guidelines, as well as knowledge differences in the short- and long-term.

Results: Results demonstrated that HCPs and trainees lack knowledge of PA guidelines, particularly guidelines for adults with SCI. The results further suggest that a single event-based intervention is not effective for improving long-term guideline knowledge.

Conclusion: Suggestions are made for future research with the aim of improving interventions that target HCP and HCP trainees’ long-term guideline knowledge for adults with SCI and the general population.

Keywords:

• Guidelines
• Health care providers
• Health care trainees
• Physical activity
• Physical disabilities

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Canadian Paralympic Committee and Krystn Orr for their assistance with data collection.

Disclaimer statements

Contributors None.

Conflicts of interest JRT and KAMG were involved in the restructuring of the intervention curriculum. No other conflicts of interest exist.

Ethics approval McMaster University Research Ethics Board.

Additional information

Funding

This study was partially supported by an Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation Mentor-Trainee Capacity Building Award awarded to the first and second authors (JRT and KAMG), and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Community-University Research Alliance grant awarded to the second author (KAMG). CHS was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada graduate scholarship.