DEVELOPMENT OF REHABILITATION CLINICAL PROTOCOL FOR CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSIOTHERAPISTS IN NEPAL

S. Suwal¹, S. Bajracharya¹, J. Kumar Singh¹

¹Handicap International, Nepal, Rehabilitation, Kathmandu, Nepal

Background: According to World Health Organization, 70% of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) is contributed by diseases that need rehabilitation, points the fact that rehabilitation is required for range of health conditions. Ministry of health and population (MoHP) has already developed rehabilitation integrated “Clinical Protocol on trauma management” for 5 health conditions (fractures, spinal cord injury, head injury, burn and amputation) in 2015 to guide the treatment. However, there was a lack of "Rehabilitation Clinical Protocol" (RCP) for highly prevalent musculoskeletal conditions like non-specific back pain, osteoarthritis of knee and complex neurological conditions like stroke, developmental delays and cerebral palsy for which the rehabilitation is a must and accounts to saving lives and a quality of life intervention. To address the gap, MoHP developed RCP integrating the above mentioned specified health conditions.

Purpose: The purpose of development of RCP was to strengthen the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of physiotherapists by ensuring the uniformity on the clinical service delivery in rehabilitation. Likewise, to promote the quality of rehabilitation service delivery by ensuring the evidence based rehabilitation services to deliver the client centric rehabilitation care.

Methods: Technical working group (TWG) inclusive of physiotherapists under MoHP was formulated which comprised of various rehabilitation professional
associations, World Health Organization Nepal, doctors, nurses and policy makers. Literature review was conducted of the selected health conditions to develop the RCP draft and was finalized with series of revision through TWG. Hence, during the occasion of "Virtual International Nepal Physiotherapy Conference 2021", MoHP led the virtual orientation on RCP to 30 physiotherapists by selecting the physiotherapist experts undertaking clinical practice on the specified health conditions to lead the virtual orientation sessions.

Results: As the COVID cases is decreasing in Nepal, MoHP is planning to conduct in person (face to face) training on RCP to all the physiotherapists working in government health facilities. The virtual orientation conducted during "Virtual International Nepal Physiotherapy Conference 2021", sensitized MoHP on its emerging need for physiotherapists to get the comprehensive training on RCP as a part of their continuing professional development.

Conclusions: The development of RCP have generated a sense of ownership from MoHP on the importance of physiotherapy management. This approach has contributed on sensitizing at policy level on the importance of physiotherapy management on selected health conditions which are included in the RCP. Large scale orientation on the RCP will help physiotherapists to increase their knowledge and skills in regard to physiotherapy management of the specified health conditions.

Implications: Physiotherapist plays a significant role in physiotherapy management of the selected health conditions. The RCP should be rolled out in large scale and also include refresher training for physiotherapists with monitoring and supervision visits from MoHP to evaluate the implementation of RCP by the physiotherapists.

Funding acknowledgements: USAID

Keywords:
Continuing professional development
Physiotherapy management
Health system strengthening

Topics:
Education: continuing professional development
Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Education

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: Ethical approval was not required because the Rehabilitation Clinical Protocol (RCP) was been developed and disseminated in the web pages and social sites of Ministry of Health and Population, Professional Associations and soon large scale training will be conducted to physiotherapists working at government health facilities.