Knowledge and perception of physiotherapy by final year students of various health care professions

Background/objectives: Interaction between various disciplines of medicine within a health care team is becoming recognised more and more as an effective method of improving the delivery of health care services. Members of the health care team need to understand and respect each other's professional abilities, in order to achieve interdisciplinary teamwork. This study was designed to evaluate the perception of the physiotherapy profession by the final year students of various health care professions and also to find out the extent of their knowledge of physiotherapy services. Materials/methods: A total of 1008 final year students of various health care professions in Dakshina Kannada participated in the survey. They were recruited from 13 nursing colleges, 4 medical colleges, 2 ayurvedic, and 1 homoeopathic college. The participants were required to fill a 22 item self-administered 3-page questionnaire, which contained both closed and open-ended questions Result: This study demonstrated that 53.1% of the respondents had good perception of physiotherapy. Also, 88.8% of the respondents demonstrated lack of knowledge of physiotherapy. Conclusion: The findings suggest that health care students need more information about physiotherapy services. Future studies would benefit the profession if they evaluate the outcomes of strategies designed to increase the awareness of physiotherapy among health care students.