physiotherapy

Background: Clinical education is an important component of physiotherapy education programs. It provides insights to the students in the fields of physiotherapy practice, develops leadership, and enhances their clinical skills in patient assessment, examination, diagnosis, treatment, planning, and intervention selection. The dimension of physiotherapy education is in the developing phase in Nepal. For further growth, the experience and the perception of the students are very important. Through this, the facilitators and barriers in physiotherapy clinical education need to be recognized. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the facilitators and barriers in physiotherapy clinical education in Nepal from a student’s perspective.Objectives: The main objective of this study was to identify the perception of physiotherapy undergraduate students about their clinical education and to find out the facilitators and barriers in clinical education.Methods: A qualitative research using focused group discussion was conducted. Ethical considerations were taken from respective departments and IRC approval was taken. BPT 3rd year, 4th year, and intern students of KUSMS were called to participate in the study. After the consent from the participants, focus groups of 6 participants (2 participants from each 3rd year, 4th year, and intern) were formed. In five FGDs, data saturation was observed and no further FGDs were conducted. FGDs were collected with audio tape recordings. The data were transcribed verbatim and translated into the English language. Then data coding was done and themes and sub-themes were generated from the codes.Results: Through the transcribed and translated data, seven themes were generated which were clinical education, student expectation, student attitude and behavior, roles and responsibilities of clinical educators, exposure, resources, and miscellaneous. These headings explained the perception of facilitators and barriers.Conclusion: The facilitators and barriers to physiotherapy clinical education were identified through student’s perspectives. These findings should be considered while preparing the guiding document for clinical education to enhance the quality of education.