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Narain S.1, Mathye D.1, Mtshali B.K.1
1Sefako Makgatho Health Science University, Physiotherapy, Pretoria, South Africa
Background: Integrated team-based primary care is an international imperative and necessary in all countries.
The South African government is trying to address it with health reforms, such as Primary Health Care Re-engineering and National Health Insurance (NHI). The experiences of many other healthcare professionals around the world are motivating them to take on some form of an advocacy role in order to influence a change in policies, laws, or regulations that govern the larger health care system. This type of advocacy necessitates stepping beyond their own scope of professions and practice into the less familiar world of policy formulation and politics. There is minimal evidence in the literature that suggest the role of Physiotherapists within the health policy development arena.
The South African government is trying to address it with health reforms, such as Primary Health Care Re-engineering and National Health Insurance (NHI). The experiences of many other healthcare professionals around the world are motivating them to take on some form of an advocacy role in order to influence a change in policies, laws, or regulations that govern the larger health care system. This type of advocacy necessitates stepping beyond their own scope of professions and practice into the less familiar world of policy formulation and politics. There is minimal evidence in the literature that suggest the role of Physiotherapists within the health policy development arena.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to ascertain the views of Expert Physiotherapists on the role that Physiotherapists play within health policy development in South Africa.
Methods: The study involved a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach. Purposive sampling was used to identify participants who met the inclusion criteria. The heads of department of all physiotherapy universities assisted in identifying participants and the researcher searched through the websites of South African based universities to further identify participants who:
(1) were registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA),
(2) had a PhD in Physiotherapy or related fields as public health, community health or health policy
(3) were working at a South African university as an academic.
Eight expert physiotherapists participated in telephonic semi-structured interviews conducted by the primary researcher. Data collected from the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using an inductive approach to generate codes and themes.
Results: The theme that emerged from the data is Physiotherapists play a minimal role in the development, implementation and revision of health care policies. This theme comprised six categories, being factors that contribute towards the minimal role played:
(1) Bargaining powers with various stakeholders (government, medical insurance, Compensation for occupation injuries & disease),
(2) Communication between stakeholders (statutory bodies, professional associations, universities and clinicians),
(3) Collaboration between stakeholders (government, medical insurance and Compensation for occupation injuries & disease) and Physiotherapists (statutory bodies, professional associations, academic experts and clinicians),
(4) Current state of undergraduate Physiotherapy curriculum, and
(5) Evidence-based research to influence health policy.
Conclusion(s): The findings of this study suggest that physiotherapists are playing a limited role in health policy mainly due to the lack of the professions bargaining powers, ineffective communication between stakeholders, the current state of the undergraduate curriculum and insufficient research on health policy involvement.
Implications: The results of this study will ensure that Physiotherapists represent Physiotherapy on health policy. It will further encourage a shift in undergraduate student education and postgraduate Physiotherapy studies to include basics in law and management thereby ensuring that they not only contribute to health policy but become policy makers themselves.
Funding acknowledgements: None
Topic: Professional issues
Ethics approval: Ethics approval obtained by Sefako Makgatho University Research Ethics Committee. SMUREC Ethics Reference Number: SMUREC/HI178/2016: PG
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
