ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE INTEGRATION OF NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT AND COUNSELING IN THE FRAMEWORK OF PHYSICAL THERAPY TREATMENT: ACROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY

M. Elboim-Gabyzon¹, R. Netzer¹

¹Haifa University, Physical Therapy Department, Haifa, Israel

Background: Health promotion is an important role of the physical therapist (PT). To that end, as recently stated by the American Physical Therapy Association, nutritional issues are within the scope of practice of the physical therapy profession, and should be included as part of physical therapy assessment and consultation. Previous studies indicating a positive attitude towards the integration of nutritional assessment and counseling within the physical therapy treatment have been conducted primarily in the United States, limiting the ability to generalize the results to other countries.

Purpose: 1) To explore the attitudes of registered PTs in Israel toward incorporating nutrition assessment and counseling into their clinical practice.
2) To explore what personal and professional characteristics of PTs are related to their attitudes towards this issue.

Methods: An anonymous nationwide online self-report survey using "Qualtrics" software was conducted between 20/03/2022 - 17/07/2022. The survey included three sections with questions focusing on the following: a. Personal and professional background characteristics; b. Self-reported level of nutritional knowledge and sources of nutritional knowledge, and c. Attitudes toward incorporating nutritional assessment and counseling into physical therapy practice, which were rated by five attitude statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicated more positive attitude.

Results: The study recruited 409 PTs, most of them (92%) with professional experience of over 3 years. Sixty-three percent of them (274 PTs) reported not having formal education regarding nutritional issues during their professional first degree studies, or in other settings. The three main sources of information on which the participants reported that they rely onto receive nutritional information were: Internet (87%), registered dietitian (70%), and professional scientific journals (36%). The three sources of information on which the participants least rely on are: TV/Radio (57%), parents (48%), and Newspapers/Magazines (41.81%).The attitudes score (section c) was 19.78±2.53 out of 25 indicating a positive attitude toward incorporating nutrition assessment and counseling into physical therapy practice. It was found that acquiring prior knowledge at the entry-level degree significantly predicted positive attitudes (β = .17, p<.01), as did years of clinical experience of 13 years and above. (β = -.13, p<.05).

Conclusions: Registered PTs in Israel held a positive attitude toward incorporating nutrition assessment and counseling into their clinical practice. Acquisition of knowledge during the entry level of PT education and ≥ 13 years of clinical experience, were found to be predictors of positive attitudes toward integrating nutrition assessment and counseling into their clinical practice, Further studies are required to explore the actual integration of nutrition into the physical therapy assessment and treatment.

Implications: The study's results reinforce the importance of including nutrition studies in the entry physical therapy curriculum and in postgraduate courses.

Funding acknowledgements: None

Keywords:
Nutritional issues
Attitudes
Curriculum

Topics:
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity
Education
Professional issues

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of Haifa

Committee: Ethics Committee at the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences

Ethics number: 2858