Looking back and looking forward

We are past the year 2019 and heading to the great 2020! Seven years I have been your Editor-in-Chief and enjoying my work with the European Journal of Physiotherapy.

During these years we have doubled the number of submitted papers. Thus, the number of rejected manuscripts has also increased even though the quality of the submitted manuscripts is better than ever. I want to thank you all authors submitting to the EJPT and give you the great news that from 2020 we are increasing the number of issues to 6 (now it is 4) per year. Thus, we will be able to publish more studies yearly.

We have started to publish study protocols, which is today an important part for the transparency of a research project. Also, I’m happy to see studies conducted with several different kind of qualitative designs, not only those analysed with qualitative content analysis. Further, I want to mention that there is no need for special formatting the manuscript before submitting, i.e. regarding references, tables and figures. If accepted, the production will do this for you. However, you still need to adhere to certain regulations such as using the TIDieR guidelines for reporting interventions and have your randomised controlled trials been registered before starting you study.

I want to start the new year for the EJPT by highlighting some examples from the published papers during 2019. In the first issue Merolli et al. [1] studied global communication practices in physiotherapy. They concluded that the data from Twitter really showed how globally spread the messages were, thus, showing potential to reach physiotherapists and other health care staff as well as patients with this way of communicating. The major themes from their Twitter communication analyses were sharing information, promoting activity and positive feedback [1]. In my opinion this is an excellent way to get positive publicity and inspire oneself to further studies. The second issue included among others a study of adherence to workplace exercises and the outcomes of it. Not surprisingly the effects in strength and endurance of neck and shoulder muscles were better in medium and high adherence groups compared to low (0-33% exercise participation) adherence group. Surprising was that there were no differences between different adherence groups in neck or shoulder pain. Productivity was not affected despite the 15 min break in workflow [2]. I think we can learn a lot from this study. The issue number 3 included a study conducted in Nigeria [3]. Teaching and learning conditions and opportunities in clinical education were identified by students and interns. The expectations on clinical educators were about being good at mentoring, being a knowledge provider and facilitator of learning, enable good communication and having respect for students. The important activities were among others integrating theory and practice, demonstrate and guide patient management [3]. I think this study should be repeated in other contexts to give us an even wider picture of what physiotherapy students globally are expecting and appreciating as good characteristics in clinical supervisors and activities in clinical practices. In the last issue for 2019 one study investigated physiotherapists burnout syndrome in Italy [4]. 118 physiotherapists participated and the results showed that 46% of them had or were at risk of developing a burnout syndrome. Males and less experienced physiotherapists were more predisposed compared to females and those with longer experiences in working life [4]. In my opinion, this study also shows that we need to study more our own expectations on what is possible for us to achieve as physiotherapists and what is not. If the treatment goals are patient-centered and realistic we are landing more likely on achievable levels of outcomes.

With that said, I wish you a happy 2020, remember that we physiotherapists are highly recognised and needed in the world! Keep up the good work!!