PTOTSLPProtocolFrontiers in rehabilitation sciences2025

Implementing psychosocial guidelines into specialized spinal cord injury rehabilitation services to strengthen person-centred health care: protocol for a mixed methods study.

Candice McBain, Anne Marie Sarandrea, Ilaria Pozzato and 7 others

PMID 40260200

WHAT IT FOUND

No results yet.

This paper describes a plan to introduce updated psychosocial guidelines to spinal cord injury teams in Australia. It outlines how researchers will measure whether staff adopt the guidelines, but reports no data on whether this improves patient care.

Key findings

01The paper is a protocol describing the plan to implement a Psychosocial Guide into three specialist spinal cord injury services.

02The intervention involves multi-dimensional strategies including education, workshops, and 'nudge' techniques like reminders and environmental cues to change clinician behaviour.

03The Guide is a suggestion for best practice and is not mandatory, with no evidence currently available on the success of integrating such standards into practice.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs

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What it does not show

This is a protocol, not a completed study, so there are no findings to act on. The study does not include a control or comparison group, making it difficult to attribute any changes in practice solely to the intervention. The survey instrument uses researcher-developed questions rather than validated scales, which may affect the reliability of the measured outcomes. The authors acknowledge potential social desirability bias in self-reported clinician data.

Declared interests

The study is funded by icare NSW. The authors declare that the funder had no role in the design, execution, analysis, or writing of the study.

The easy way to misread this

Do not assume this paper provides evidence that psychosocial guidelines improve spinal cord injury rehabilitation outcomes. It only describes the plan to test whether implementation strategies can help clinicians adopt these guidelines.

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