Impact of Virtual Meeting on Learning Intercultural Competence between Physiotherapists and Students of Two Countries: A Pre and Post Survey

To measure the Impact of virtual meeting in enhancement of understanding of each other’s culture and to ultimately improve physiotherapy treatment of patients from other cultures.

A group of students from German University had a zoom meeting with a group of students and graduate physiotherapist from Pakistan in January 2023. There were 22 participants who volunteered to share their experiences before and after the meeting anonymously. Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Checklist, adopted with friendly permission by the authors of the Greater Vancouver Island Multicultural Society, was used to collect the data. The questionnaire measures the competence in terms of awareness about cultures, general skills related to intercultural meetings and actions on a 6-point likert scale. Total score ranges from 37 to 222, lower score reflects more understanding of others culture. Descriptive statistics were calculated and paired sample t test was applied to find the difference between before and after the zoom meeting learning experiences within groups and independent t test for between the groups from both the countries. P value ≤0.005 was considered significant.

The mean age±std dev. of the participants was 21.50794±8.69 ranging from 21 to 24 years. Out of 22, there were 17(77.27%) females and 5(22.72%) male participants. Majority of the participants 13(59.09%) were residing in Pakistan, while 9(40.90%) in Germany. Total mean score of Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Checklist, dropped significantly after the meeting in comparison to the total mean score before the meeting. There was significant difference in learning of other’s cultures before and after zoom meeting, within both the groups (P0.005) but not significant between the groups (P>0.05).

There was significant improvement in cross cultural understanding of the participants after zoom meeting within both the groups.

The results of the study will be of great interest and leads towards future research projects and open new avenues and opportunities. The patient care will be benefitted with better understanding of different cultures by the physiotherapist.