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Błaszcz M1, Krupnik S2, Bigaj W3, Kukla P1
1University of Physical Education in Krakow, Faculty of Rehabilitation, Cracow, Poland, 2University of Physical Education in Krakow, Department of Sports Medicine, Cracow, Poland, 3Pedagogical University of Cracow, Cracow, Poland
Background: For many years, Polish physiotherapists (PPT) had very limited possibilities of working and their importance was depreciated. In 2015, after 28 years of struggling, PPTs succeeded. The Act on the Profession of Physiotherapy (hereafter “act”) was approved. The act established the professional self-government - The Polish Chamber of Physiotherapists (PChP) that today associating all 57 thousand PPT. Due to new regulations, PPT´s achieved greater autonomy and impact on national healthcare strategies. Despite this, many criticism of new changes appeared in the PPT's environment, especially due to obligatory membership fee, which amounts to € 6 per month (around 1% of PPTs average salary)
Purpose: Evaluation how physiotherapists' perception of the financial burden with membership fee affects perception of influence PChP and act on their professional situation and physiotherapy system.
Methods: Self-designed questionnaire in traditional (paper) form examined the opinion of 440 physiotherapists between May and June 2017 during master´s studies at the the Jagiellonian University and University of Physical Education in Krakow. Respondents were 24,1 ± 4,3 years old; 75% female, 50% professionally active (49,6% private, 17% public and 33,4 public and private sector). Next, respondents were divided into three groups: High Burden (HB-n=134) and Low Burden (LB-n=133) group, for which the membership fee was respectively high or low financial burden and group that have no opinion (n=163) - excluded from analysis. In the presented part of the study, 8 questions based on modified 7-Point Likert scale were used. Positive perception including answers: rather improve, improve and definitely improve were considered as ”improve”. Statistical analysis was performed in STATISTICA 12. Chi2 test was applied to verify statistical hypothesis.
Results: Overall, HBgroup was significantly less positive about changes than LB group. Totally, 60,9% of low burden group believed that introduction of the act and PChP would improve their professional situation compared to 39,5% of high burden group (p 0,05). Also, significantly larger part of LB perceived increase of their professional competences (64,7%), development (59,4%) and earnings (38,4%) because of the act and PChP compared to HB (respectively 37,3%, 31,4% and 13,4%) (p 0,05). Likewise, possible changes in availability and quality of physiotherapy in the public health service were significantly more optimistically perceived in LB (respectively 29,3 and 40,6%) compared to HB (12,7 and 26,9%) (p 0,05). Only expectation of positive changes in availability and quality of physiotherapy in the private sector were not significantly different in LB (respectively 45,1 and 70,52% ) and HB (40,3 and 64,2%) (p>0,05). Professional activity doesn't significantly affected financial burden.
Conclusion(s): Physiotherapists who see the membership fee as a high financial burden have significantly worse judgment of the impact of their professional self-government and new physiotherapy law on changes in both their professional situation, competences, development, earnings and availability and quality of physiotherapy in the public health service.
Implications: Another countries that consider introducing professional self-government with obligatory membership fee for all physiotherapists should implement a great campaign on the purpose of the fees so that physiotherapists can consider that they will have benefits from it.
Keywords: Membership fee, professional self-government, physiotherapy law
Funding acknowledgements: The work was unfunded.
Purpose: Evaluation how physiotherapists' perception of the financial burden with membership fee affects perception of influence PChP and act on their professional situation and physiotherapy system.
Methods: Self-designed questionnaire in traditional (paper) form examined the opinion of 440 physiotherapists between May and June 2017 during master´s studies at the the Jagiellonian University and University of Physical Education in Krakow. Respondents were 24,1 ± 4,3 years old; 75% female, 50% professionally active (49,6% private, 17% public and 33,4 public and private sector). Next, respondents were divided into three groups: High Burden (HB-n=134) and Low Burden (LB-n=133) group, for which the membership fee was respectively high or low financial burden and group that have no opinion (n=163) - excluded from analysis. In the presented part of the study, 8 questions based on modified 7-Point Likert scale were used. Positive perception including answers: rather improve, improve and definitely improve were considered as ”improve”. Statistical analysis was performed in STATISTICA 12. Chi2 test was applied to verify statistical hypothesis.
Results: Overall, HBgroup was significantly less positive about changes than LB group. Totally, 60,9% of low burden group believed that introduction of the act and PChP would improve their professional situation compared to 39,5% of high burden group (p 0,05). Also, significantly larger part of LB perceived increase of their professional competences (64,7%), development (59,4%) and earnings (38,4%) because of the act and PChP compared to HB (respectively 37,3%, 31,4% and 13,4%) (p 0,05). Likewise, possible changes in availability and quality of physiotherapy in the public health service were significantly more optimistically perceived in LB (respectively 29,3 and 40,6%) compared to HB (12,7 and 26,9%) (p 0,05). Only expectation of positive changes in availability and quality of physiotherapy in the private sector were not significantly different in LB (respectively 45,1 and 70,52% ) and HB (40,3 and 64,2%) (p>0,05). Professional activity doesn't significantly affected financial burden.
Conclusion(s): Physiotherapists who see the membership fee as a high financial burden have significantly worse judgment of the impact of their professional self-government and new physiotherapy law on changes in both their professional situation, competences, development, earnings and availability and quality of physiotherapy in the public health service.
Implications: Another countries that consider introducing professional self-government with obligatory membership fee for all physiotherapists should implement a great campaign on the purpose of the fees so that physiotherapists can consider that they will have benefits from it.
Keywords: Membership fee, professional self-government, physiotherapy law
Funding acknowledgements: The work was unfunded.
Topic: Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies; Education; Information management, technology & big data
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: University of Physical Education in Krakow
Ethics committee: Faculty of Rehabilitation
Reason not required: The research method was a completely safe questionnaire which did not concern any question that could requires ethics approval and it's filling was voluntary for respondents. The director of Institute of Physiotherapy Collegium Medicum agreed to conduct the questionnaire.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
