Abstract

The purpose of the survey was to investigate the current state of knowledge and practice regarding Tennis Elbow (TE) within a physiotherapy population. A secondary purpose was to explore attitudes towards emerging electrotherapeutic technologies in the treatment of TE and to ascertain if culturally, within Physiotherapy, there could be bias against such technologies due to a historic lack of high quality evidence surrounding them.
The survey was undertaken entirely online using an e-mail cascade and 253 responses were gained. Overall, respondents overestimated the strength of evidence supporting a list of common treatment modalities. Where electrotherapeutic modalities were concerned however, the vast majority of the sample though the evidence was poor. Where diagnosis and management were concerned the majority of respondents appeared to practice in an evidence based fashion.
Perhaps the most important finding of the study is that a third of respondent though they might be biased against new electrotherapeutic technologies, even if they were using them within a research setting. The implications of this are discussed in the context of how factors such as communication and therapist affects may change treatment outcomes.