THE PERCEIVED PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, FINANCIAL, AND ACADEMIC IMPACTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON DPT STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

W. Ge¹, M. Ball¹, N. Balog-Bickerstaff¹, L. Kerns¹

¹Youngstown State University, Youngstown, United States

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic inevitably impacts every individual during the lockdown since March 2020. Some early studies demonstrated the physical and psychological impacts of COVID-19 on general populations and students including physiotherapy/physical therapy students. Physical therapy education changed abruptly which caused additional challenges for Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students in the United States. Literature suggested that DPT students experienced negative impacts of the pandemic on academic success and mental health. However, at the point of one year into the pandemic, little was known about the comprehensive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on DPT students in the United States.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the physical, psychological, financial, and academic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on DPT students in the United States.

Methods: Convenience sampling was used to recruit DPT students enrolled in Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE)-accredited DPT programs in the United States. The research design was a cross-sectional nonexperimental survey. The survey was administered using the Alchemer online survey platform in March 2021. Program Directors of all 256 CAPTE-accredited programs in the United States were contacted by email to forward the survey and informed consent to all DPT students in their program. The survey included 5 demographic items including COVID testing and 12 Likert scale questions in four domains: physical, psychological, financial, and academic. For each survey item, students reported their level of agreement from “strongly disagree”, “disagree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “agree”, to “strongly agree” (where 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree). All analyses were performed using the statistical program R (version 4.1.2, R Core Team, 2021).

Results: A total of 1230 completed responses (902 (73.3%) females, 319 (25.9%) males, and 9 (0.8%) preferred not to say) were received. The average age was 24.6 (SD 3.3) years old. There were 190 (15.4%) students who tested positive for COVID-19, 892 (72.5%) tested negative, 134 (10.9%) not tested, and 14 (1.1%) preferred not to say. The mean responses were 3.45 (SD 1.12) in the physical domain, 3.48 (SD 0.92) in the psychological domain, 2.74 (SD 1.03) in the financial domain, and 3.33 (SD 0.93) in the academic domain. There was no statically significant difference in COVID-19 positive tests between minority and white students (n=31 (15%) vs n=159 (15%), p=0.09). No significant difference was found based on minority status. A statistically significant difference was found in the mental domain with female students perceiving a more negative impact of the pandemic. First-year students reported a significantly higher negative impact in the physical domain compared with second-year students. The perceived impact in the academic domain was significantly higher for both first- and second-year students than for third-year students.

Conclusions: At one year into the pandemic, DPT students in the United States were more impacted psychologically and physically than academically and financially.

Implications: Developing and promoting access to campus and community resources to address the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to facilitating student success during and after the pandemic.

Funding acknowledgements: None.

Keywords:
COVID-19

Topics:
COVID-19
Education

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Youngstown State University

Committee: Institutional Review Board

Ethics number: 088-2021