KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND PERCEPTIONS REGARDING COVID-19 AMONG PHYSIOTHERAPY STUDENTS IN UAE

A. Farghaly¹, S. Mysore¹, F. Alanazi¹

Background: Novel COVID -19 virus was officially declared to be pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, the COVID – 19 related information released from  variable resources were overwhelmed, Physiotherapy students, particularly  those in the final years of the study were expected to have a substantial knowledge about the symptom, methods of infection transmission and trusted resources to seek their knowledge.

Purpose: The aims of the study were to find out how UAE physiotherapy students employed their knowledge and skills on themselves and their families to stay safe during COVID-19, and how they utilized their critical appraisal skills to verify public information on COVID-19 and finally to explore which knowledge and skills learnt in the physiotherapy undergraduate program have been beneficial in understanding the common symptoms, and therapeutic interventions of COVID-19.

Methods: A qualitative approach, using one to one semi-structured interviews with undergraduate physiotherapy students. The participants for this study were recruited from a healthcare educational institution. Using purposive convenient sampling, a total of forty -four were interviewed on one to one basis via zoom. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Data Analysis: The interview data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Three overarching themes with further three subthemes within each of the themes emerged by synthesizing the data through coding and categorizing.

Results: The study found that during the COVID-19, the students of physiotherapy were found to be updated with the necessary information to understand the newly emerged virus, with college learnt, the participants  played an active role in educating their families about the infection control measures and proper hygiene to stay safe during the pandemic, result showed that physiotherapy students were able to critically analyze information, skills learnt during practical sessions and clinical placement have the greatest impact on the overall information gained by physiotherapy students.

Conclusion(s): Current physiotherapy undergraduate curriculum provided adequate knowledge to prepare physiotherapy students to play and active role in educating themselves and their families to stay safe during the pandemic, however  study highlighted  the need to integrate hands-on skills within undergraduate curriculum in an explicit, organized, and systematic manner, to further prepare students to practice on real patients and protect themselves from clinical hazards.

Implications: This study has shown that, knowledge and skills  learnt during physiotherapy undergraduate study provided the students with sufficient knowledge  on infection control  measures and enabled them to educate their families to stay safe during the pandemic. Hands on experiences incorporated with respiratory modules were particularly useful o students who reported acceptable knowledge on symptoms of the COVID-19, mechanism of  infection transmission and physiotherapy intervention, the study also highlighted  the need to integrate more hands on approaches  to the current curriculum to meet the growing need for health care professional to combat the  COVID -19

Funding, acknowledgements: There is no funding available for this project

Keywords: COVID-19, Physiotherapy students, Knowledge and skills

Topic: COVID-19

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Fatima College of Health Sciences

Committee: Fatima College of Health Sciences Ethics Review Committee

Ethics number: No. INTSTF007PTY20