Patient education: Physical therapists' perceptions regarding the use, effectiveness, and barriers of adult education principles

Due to the lack of physical therapy literature on patient education and the importance of patient education in current physical therapy practice, this study examined the patient education practices of physical therapists (PTs) in South Dakota. The primary purpose of this study was to analyze the adult education practices PTs perceive they use, how effective PTs believe they are with these practices in patient education, and the relationship between the use and effectiveness with patient education. The secondary purpose was to determine if there were any differences in PT perceptions of adult education based on demographics such as number of years in practice and highest academic degree. The final purpose was to determine the types of patient education commonly used, what PTs perceive as barriers to using adult education practices, and what factors PTs perceive contributed to their professional preparation for patient education.; The population included all of the licensed physical therapists in South Dakota (n = 495). The instrument used for this study included two parts: the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS) (Conti, 1979) and a survey developed by the investigator. Descriptive statistics were used to assess demographic information, PALS scores, effectiveness scores, barriers, professional training, and type of patient education typically used. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to determine the relationship between the PALS and effectiveness scores, while analysis of variance was used to assess the differences in PALS scores based on the demographic information.; The following conclusions were based on the findings of this study: First, PTs use learner-centered actions with patient education and are effective in using these activities. Second, PTs always include home exercises in their patient education, but do provide the patients with a variety of other information and advice about their status. Third, there are several barriers that limit the effectiveness of PTs in using learner-centered patient education. Next, PTs gain understanding of patient education techniques in practice as opposed to didactic physical therapy education. Finally, the extent of use and effectiveness of learner-centered activities in patient education is not dependent on the personal characteristics of the physical therapists.