Assessing clinical reasoning in physical therapy : discriminative validity of the Reasoning 4 Change instrument

• Objectives: To evaluate discriminative validity of the Reasoning 4 Change (R4C) instrument by investigating differences in clinical reasoning skills between first semester, final semester physical therapy students and physical therapy experts.Design:Cross-sectional designSetting: University and physical therapy practiceParticipantsStudents from the first (n = 87) and final semester (n = 47) of an entry-level physical therapy program and experts in physical therapy with a behavioral medicine approach (n = 14).Methods: The students and experts answered the web-based R4C instrument on one occasion. The R4C instrument includes four domains designed to assess physical therapists’ clinical reasoning skills with a focus on supporting clients’ behavior change and has demonstrated acceptable content validity, convergent validity and reliability. Data was analyzed with one-way analysis of variance and Games-Howell post hoc test.Results: Differences in all domains and subscale scores were found between the three groups. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated that experts scored higher (better clinical reasoning skills) than first semester students in all domains and subscales; and higher scores than final semester students, except for two subscales. Final semester students scored higher than first semester students, except for one subscale.Conclusions: The findings highlight differences in clinical reasoning skills focusing on clients’ behavior change among physical therapy students with different degrees of training and education in clinical reasoning and physical therapists with extensive experience and expertise. The results provide evidence for the discriminative validity of the R4C instrument which support the use of the R4C instrument in education, research and clinical practice.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Sjukgymnastik (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Physiotherapy (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Arbetsterapi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Occupational Therapy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Clinical Decision-Making

Clinical Reasoning

Education

Outcome Measures

Physical Therapy

Validity

fysioterapi

Physiotherapy

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)