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Physical and occupational therapists' perceptions of sustainability of a knowledge translation intervention to improve the use of outcome measures in inpatient rehabilitation: a qualitative study

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Abstract

Purpose

To assess the perceptions, barriers, and facilitators of sustaining the use of outcome measures of physical and occupational therapists following a three-year knowledge translation intervention.

Methods

A phenomenological qualitative study was conducted at an inpatient rehabilitation hospital on 13 clinicians (6 physical therapists and 7 occupational therapists) participating in the knowledge translation intervention. Data collection used semi-structured interviewing during three focus groups to understand the lived experience of clinicians participating in the knowledge translation project. Data were analyzed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) codebook.

Results

Two investigators coded twelve CFIR constructs into barriers and facilitators for outcome measure use. Four key themes emerged as determinants for outcome measures use: (1) Organizational support and clinician engagement; (2) the knowledge translation intervention; (3) the outcome measures themselves; and (4) the patients. Clinicians reported using outcome measures for patient education, treatment planning, and goal setting, while they found other outcome measures lacked functional significance. Facilitators included organizational support, access to knowledge, ongoing training, and clinician engagement. Ongoing barriers included the need for more training and the need to select different tests.

Conclusions

This study found proper selection of outcomes measures is important and attributed the sustainability of the knowledge translation intervention to organizational support, clinician engagement and ongoing training. The clinicians wanted continued training to overcome new barriers. Barriers identified in this study were unique to the typical barriers identified for outcome measure use. Ongoing barrier assessments are needed for continued refinement of knowledge translation interventions to enhance sustainability.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [WR], upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Health Professions, Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Science, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT, USA

    Wendy M. Romney, Michelle E. Wormley, Diana Veneri, Andrea Oberlander & Victoria Catizone

  2. Inpatient Physical Therapy Department, Gaylord Specialty Healthcare, Wallingford, CT, USA

    Wendy M. Romney, Diana Veneri, Andrea Oberlander & Pete Grevelding

Authors
  1. Wendy M. Romney
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  2. Michelle E. Wormley
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  3. Diana Veneri
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  4. Andrea Oberlander
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  5. Victoria Catizone
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  6. Pete Grevelding
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Contributions

Conceptualization and Methodology: Wendy Romney, Michelle Wormley, Andrea Oberlander, Diana Veneri; Material preparation: Wendy Romney, Michelle Wormley, Andrea Oberlander, Diana Veneri: Data Collection: Michelle Wormley, Andrea Oberlander, Pete Grevelding; Analysis: Wendy Romney, Victoria Catizone, Andrea Oberlander, Michelle Wormley. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Wendy Romney. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wendy M. Romney.

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Competing interests

The authors, WR, DV, AO, and PG work at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Gaylord Specialty Healthcare. MW relevants financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

This study was in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Institutional Review approved Boards at Sacred Heart University (#171201B) and Gaylord Specialty Healthcare (#201810ROM) this study.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Romney, W.M., Wormley, M.E., Veneri, D. et al. Physical and occupational therapists' perceptions of sustainability of a knowledge translation intervention to improve the use of outcome measures in inpatient rehabilitation: a qualitative study. Qual Life Res 33, 653–665 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03550-7

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