Patients’ Attitude towards Involvement of Clinical Physiotherapy Students in their Management in Selected Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria

Abstract

Clinical physiotherapy education is a vital component of physiotherapy students’ training. However, patients can refuse students’ involvement in  their management, thus negatively affecting clinical physiotherapy education. This study was conducted to investigate patients’ attitude towards  involving physiotherapy students in their care and the factors that can influence it in Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey involving 213 consecutively  sampled patients from three randomly selected teaching hospitals in Nigeria was undertaken. Data on respondents’ demographics and their  attitude towards clinical physiotherapy students’ involvement in their care were collected using a 12-item survey questionnaire, respectively. The  data obtained were summarised using frequency counts, percentages, mean, standard deviation and analysed using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-  Whitney U tests with level of significance set at 0.05. Respondents’ mean attitude score (36.26±8.15) was 50.54% of the total scoring range, and  significantly varied with their education (p = 0.02) and occupation (p = 0.04) categories. Students’ comportment, informed consent, respondents’  privacy and confidentiality are other factors that could influence their willingness to participate in clinical education involving clinical physiotherapy  students. In conclusion, respondents’ attitude towards involving clinical physiotherapy students in their management was relatively poor in the  Nigerian environment. There was a need for interventions geared towards improving patients’ willingness to participate in physiotherapy clinical  education involving clinical students, to enhance students’ learning.