Level of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs towards patients with chronic low back pain among final year School of Therapeutic Sciences students at the University of the Witwatersrand - A cross-sectional study.
Grace Mukoka, Benita Olivier, Sadiya Ravat
PMID 31535050WHAT IT FOUND
Final-year therapeutic science students scored 6.01 out of 12 on pain knowledge and 63.1 out of 105 on beliefs that chronic pain justifies impairment.
Physiotherapy students scored higher than occupational therapy students.
Key findings
01Among 145 respondents, the mean pain-knowledge score was 6.01 out of 12, which the paper reports as 50%.
02The mean HC-PAIRS score was 63.1 out of 105, and higher scores mean stronger belief that chronic pain justifies impairment.
03Physiotherapy students had higher pain-knowledge scores than nursing and occupational therapy students.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The participants were final-year students, not practising therapists, so the findings cannot be taken as evidence about current clinical care. Only 145 of the 224 enrolled students responded, and some programme groups were very small. The HC-PAIRS questionnaire was validated among health professionals, but not established among students, and it has no cut point for identifying negative attitudes. Because the study was cross-sectional, it cannot show that low pain knowledge causes negative attitudes, or that attitudes changed during the students' training. Male students made up 20.69% of respondents, so gender comparisons may be unstable.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that practising therapists have these knowledge deficits or that pain education will improve patient care. This was a questionnaire survey of 145 final-year students, and it only reported associations between scores.