USE OF FUNCTIONAL OUTCOME MEASURES BY COLOMBIAN PHYSIOTHERAPISTS WITHIN THEIR PRACTICE

Renteria C.¹, Berg K.¹

¹University of Toronto, Physical Therapy, Toronto, Canada

Background: Functional outcome measures have played an important role in the process of integrating EBP into the physiotherapy profession. According to recent research functional outcome measures are commonly used in countries such as the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, India and Nigeria, but there is little information in the literature regarding into which functional scales are being used in Colombia.
This study is being submitted in the "Special Interest Reports" given that its execution will be completed in April 2017.

Purpose: The objectives of this study are:
1) to determine the extent in which Colombian physiotherapists use functional outcome measures within their practice and
2) to understand their perception about the benefits and barriers of the use of functional outcome measures.
The ultimate goal of this study is to promote the use of evidence informed practice, and more specifically the use of functional outcome measures in Colombia.

Methods: This study is a quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive study, in the form of an electronic survey questionnaire. The recruitment process will be in collaboration with ES – Education en Salud: A continuing education company in Cali, Colombia which has an ample database of 4,000 PTs working in all health care settings nationwide. A 20-item questionnaire has been developed based in previous studies by Stokes and colleagues in 2008, Jette and colleagues in 2009, and Mehta & Grifton in 2014. The questionnaire is comprised of four subsections: demographics (items 1-10), use of outcome measures (items 11-15), perception of benefits and barriers of using outcome measures (items 16-19), willingness to use outcome measure (item 20). Participants will be given a list of eighteen outcome measures to indicate which ones they are using routinely. They could also add other validated outcome measures they use. The selected outcome measures listed in our survey have already been translated and validated in Spanish, and are performance-based and self-reported functional scales as they tend to be used more frequently within the practice of physiotherapy. Furthermore, a mix of Impairment-based and Functional outcome measures were deliberately included in order to be able to differentiate the use of these two types of outcome measures within our data analysis.

Results: This study will analyse characteristics in the participants including region, practice setting, age and educational background of therapists who do and do not use functional outcomes scales. We expect to determine which measures are most commonly used based on the characteristics previously described, and also to examine the participant´s perceptions of the benefits and barriers of Functional Outcome measures.

Conclusion(s): The conclusions of this study will be obtained in April 2017, and then presented at the WCPT congress in July 2017.

Implications: The results of this study will build awareness of the available measures in Spanish and facilitate a conversation amongst Colombian physiotherapists as to which measures are common across settings and in different regions. Information on the perceptions of benefits and barriers will also provide a foundation for continuing education strategies, as well as formal entry to practice physiotherapy education programs.

Funding acknowledgements: There is no funding related to the execution of this project.

Topic: Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies

Ethics approval: Approval from Ethical Review Board of University of Toronto expected on November/December 2016. Will be emailed to WCPT once received.

All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.