Le VT1
1University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh, Physiotherapy, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Background: In Vietnam, physiotherapy services are mostly considered to be for people with disabilities, or lifelong impairments. Therefore physiotherapists are mainly located in the hospitals or clinics while community-based prevention, health promotion and self-management are overlooked. As a way of expanding the future scope of influence, an innovative pilot community-based internship project was established at University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMP) to explore the role of physiotherapy at community level.
Purpose: The primary purpose of the project was to
(1) Implement comprehensive physiotherapy intervention at community level,
(2) Enhance leadership and project management skills among physiotherapy students,
(3) Raise awareness of physiotherapy among broader community.
Our secondary purpose to gauge the extent to which physiotherapy students, and the community, would benefit from an innovative internship model.
Methods: The 4th year students were assigned to work within a project-based internship in one month with support from the faculty. There were 5 groups, each with 8 students:
(1) Scoliosis group (SG) performed a screening for scoliosis on children and adolescents in Tan Phu district followed by individual intervention and education session for the parents;
(2) Work-related musculoskeletal disorders group (WRMDG) held patient education sessions for work-related musculoskeletal disorders for office and labour workers at Thai Binh shoes manufactory in Binh Duong province;
(3) Fall risk prevention group (FRPG) conducted fall risk prevention program for the elderly at Tu Hanh pagoda, Tan Phu district;
(4) Physical activity group (PAG) organized health promotion event for UMP students;
(5) Cerebral Palsy group (CPG) trained the parents who have children with cerebral palsy to manage their children at home and provided instructive booklets.
Results: (1) the SG screened 123 children and found 59 ones with scoliosis. Education sessions and individual treatment were provided for 28 children who accepted to paticipate;
(2) There were 31 office workers and 205 labour workers attended the patient education sessions organized by WRMDG. A mobile application (on Android) called PTO has been developed for home exercise within the project.
(3) Fall risk prevention program of FRPG was held for a group of 10 elderly with pre and post evaluation;
(4) PAG provided physical activity booklet for 102 students who attended the health-promotion workshop. Their jogging event attracted 33 participants;
(5) CPG offered booklet, education session and home-based individual treatment for 6 families who have children with cerebral palsy. A Facebook fan page was created to provide general information and recruit subject.
Conclusion(s): There were 471 community-based beneficiaries from this program. The students showed creativity and leadership skills through the process and developed competencies in communicating in audience's language. Additionally, the students expressed great interest and motivations towards such novel internships which created new challenges and problems, for which they could work as a team to solve.
Implications: During this pilot project, physiotherapy students (and their faculty mentors) became familiar with health promotion, preventive intervention and self-management. This program raised awareness of the role of physiotherapy in community level, and the next level to conduct a more robust qualitative and quantitative measurement of the student experience.
Keywords: community-based rehabilitation internship, health promotion, self- management
Funding acknowledgements: It was a self-funded program.
Purpose: The primary purpose of the project was to
(1) Implement comprehensive physiotherapy intervention at community level,
(2) Enhance leadership and project management skills among physiotherapy students,
(3) Raise awareness of physiotherapy among broader community.
Our secondary purpose to gauge the extent to which physiotherapy students, and the community, would benefit from an innovative internship model.
Methods: The 4th year students were assigned to work within a project-based internship in one month with support from the faculty. There were 5 groups, each with 8 students:
(1) Scoliosis group (SG) performed a screening for scoliosis on children and adolescents in Tan Phu district followed by individual intervention and education session for the parents;
(2) Work-related musculoskeletal disorders group (WRMDG) held patient education sessions for work-related musculoskeletal disorders for office and labour workers at Thai Binh shoes manufactory in Binh Duong province;
(3) Fall risk prevention group (FRPG) conducted fall risk prevention program for the elderly at Tu Hanh pagoda, Tan Phu district;
(4) Physical activity group (PAG) organized health promotion event for UMP students;
(5) Cerebral Palsy group (CPG) trained the parents who have children with cerebral palsy to manage their children at home and provided instructive booklets.
Results: (1) the SG screened 123 children and found 59 ones with scoliosis. Education sessions and individual treatment were provided for 28 children who accepted to paticipate;
(2) There were 31 office workers and 205 labour workers attended the patient education sessions organized by WRMDG. A mobile application (on Android) called PTO has been developed for home exercise within the project.
(3) Fall risk prevention program of FRPG was held for a group of 10 elderly with pre and post evaluation;
(4) PAG provided physical activity booklet for 102 students who attended the health-promotion workshop. Their jogging event attracted 33 participants;
(5) CPG offered booklet, education session and home-based individual treatment for 6 families who have children with cerebral palsy. A Facebook fan page was created to provide general information and recruit subject.
Conclusion(s): There were 471 community-based beneficiaries from this program. The students showed creativity and leadership skills through the process and developed competencies in communicating in audience's language. Additionally, the students expressed great interest and motivations towards such novel internships which created new challenges and problems, for which they could work as a team to solve.
Implications: During this pilot project, physiotherapy students (and their faculty mentors) became familiar with health promotion, preventive intervention and self-management. This program raised awareness of the role of physiotherapy in community level, and the next level to conduct a more robust qualitative and quantitative measurement of the student experience.
Keywords: community-based rehabilitation internship, health promotion, self- management
Funding acknowledgements: It was a self-funded program.
Topic: Education: clinical; Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing; Occupational health & ergonomics
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: N/A
Ethics committee: N/A
Reason not required: That program was included in the bachelor program of Physiotherapy at University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam as a community-based rehabilitation internship. For all locations where that students implemented the screening or intervention, the University has sent formal documents to ask for approval upon arrival. The subjects have been asked to signed informed consent for using their data and images for report and teaching purposes.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
