Qualitative evaluation of the contents of physicians′ referral to the Physiotherapy Department of a Teaching Hospital in Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The content of physicians′ referral (PR) for physiotherapy is very crucial with respect to physical diagnosis and treatment decisions. It is an indicator of the level of clinical decision making required for proper physiotherapy management of patients. Objectives: To investigate the contents of the PRs to the Department of Physiotherapy of a Teaching Hospital. Materials and Methods: A total of 326 PR for physiotherapy received from four Medical Departments (63 Medicine, 90 Orthopaedics, 81 Paediatrics, and 92 Surgery) of the Teaching Hospital over a period of 3 months were analyzed using a structured data selection sheet. Clinical information such as patient′s name and age, diagnosis, brief summary of pathology, prescribed modality, referring unit, date of referral, name, and signature of referring physicians were extracted. Data are presented using frequency distribution and percentages. Chi-square was used to determine the association between variables with significance set at P < 0.05. Results: In the majority of the PR, a brief summary of the pathology of the patients (230, 70.6%) and the referring units (259, 79.4%) were included. The majority (239, 73.3%) of the PR included diagnosis in their referral; (212, 65.0%) and (142, 43.6%) of the PR contained physiotherapy prescription and physicians′ name, respectively. Conclusion: Most of the PR did not contain adequate or complete information based on a standard referral format, and most physicians use physiotherapy on "prescription basis" rather than on "consultation basis." A detailed PR for physiotherapy may encourage the use of physiotherapy on a consultation basis.

Keywords

• Clinical information
• physicians′ referral
• physiotherapy
• Teaching Hospital