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Physiotherapists and General Practitioners attitudes towards ‘Physio Direct’ phone based musculoskeletal Physiotherapy services: a national survey

Harland, Nicholas and Blacklidge, Brian (2016) Physiotherapists and General Practitioners attitudes towards ‘Physio Direct’ phone based musculoskeletal Physiotherapy services: a national survey. Physiotherapy, 103 (2). pp. 174-179. ISSN 0031-9406

Item Type: Article

Abstract

Objectives: Physiotherapy phone based, “Physio Direct” (PD) musculoskeletal triage and treat services are a relatively new phenomena. This study explored Physiotherapist and GP attitudes towards PD services.
Design: Online national survey via cascade e-mail initiated by study leads.
Participants: n=488 Physiotherapists and n=68 GP’s completed the survey.
Outcome Measures: The survey asked 3 negatively worded and 3 positively worded Likert scale questions regarding PD services. It also collected demographic data and more global attitudes including a version of the friends and family test.
Results: Overall both physiotherapists and GP’s have positive attitudes towards PD services. There was global agreement that PD triage was a good idea but in both groups the majority of respondents who expressed a definite opinion thought that patients would still eventually need to be seen face to face. The vast majority of all respondents also thought patients should be given a choice about first accessing PD services. Physiotherapists with experience of PD services had more positive and less negative attitudes than those without experience. More detailed results are discussed.
Conclusions: Relevant clinical stakeholders have generally positive attitudes towards PD services, but more so when they have experience of them. Counter to research findings significant proportions of respondents believe patients accessing PD services will still need to be seen face to face. The significant majority of respondents believe patients should be given a choice whether they access PD services in the first instance or not.

Key Words: Musculoskeletal, Survey, Attitudes, physio direct.

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More Information

Depositing User: Nicholas Harland

Identifiers

Item ID: 12385
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2016.09.002
ISSN: 0031-9406
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/12385
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2016.09.002

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Nicholas Harland: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3402-3457

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 06 Aug 2020 15:39
Last Modified: 06 Aug 2020 15:39

Contributors

Author: Nicholas Harland ORCID iD
Author: Brian Blacklidge

University Divisions

Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing > School of Nursing and Health Sciences

Subjects

Sciences > Health Sciences

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