Abstract
Background: Research is fundamental for developing high-quality assessments and new evidence-based treatment and is an integral part of the skills base for physiotherapists, particularly at a university hospital. However, physiotherapy research remains to be assessed and promoted.
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate research field and resultant publications conducted by physiotherapists in a Danish university hospital. Materials and methods: Sixty-three research studies involving physiotherapists in the period 2010 to 2018 were screened for inclusion in this retrospective review. A standard template was completed for each research study. The template includes: study title, design, manager; location, contact person, period and status.
Results: Thirty-three studies conducted by physiotherapists were included. Of these, 2 (6%) studies were cancelled, 10 (30%) studies were in process and 21 (64%) studies completed. The most frequent research field was neurological physiotherapy (21%), followed equally by orthopedics physiotherapy (15%), back related physiotherapy (15%) and oncology physiotherapy (15%). The most frequent used design was randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (27%), followed equally by validity studies (15%) and systematic reviews (15%).
Twenty-five articles with a physiotherapist as first author were published in peer-reviewed journals. Of these, 20 (80%) articles were published in disease, symptom or gender specific journals while 5 (20%) articles were published in physiotherapy journals. An additional 11 articles were published in national physiotherapy or patient-related journals which were not peer-reviewed.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicated that neurological physiotherapy was the most frequent research field, RCTs the most used design and 25 articles were published in peer-reviewed journals. A standard template is recommended to obtain systematically data from research studies.
Clinical rehabilitation impact: This study documented for the first time that physiotherapists in a university hospital conduct and publish research as basis for high-quality assessments and new evidence-based treatment.
Keywords
Physiotherapy research; university hospital; template