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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE: The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant impact on the medical sector worldwide, including physical therapy (PT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the PT services, and the associated psychological distress endured by P...

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Autores principales: Elsayed, Walaa, Albagmi, Faisal, Hussain, Mehwish, Alghamdi, Mohammed, Farrag, Ahmed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9733862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36490281
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278785
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author Elsayed, Walaa
Albagmi, Faisal
Hussain, Mehwish
Alghamdi, Mohammed
Farrag, Ahmed
author_facet Elsayed, Walaa
Albagmi, Faisal
Hussain, Mehwish
Alghamdi, Mohammed
Farrag, Ahmed
author_sort Elsayed, Walaa
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant impact on the medical sector worldwide, including physical therapy (PT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the PT services, and the associated psychological distress endured by PT practitioners in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted to survey on-duty PT practitioners using a web-based questionnaire. Licensed PT practitioners working in Saudi Arabia (n = 265) participated and completed all the survey questions. The questionnaire comprised 30 questions covering the sociodemographic data and the outcome measures, which included the impact of the pandemic on the PT practice, use of telerehabilitation, administrative response during the pandemic, and PT practitioners’ anxiety measured by the General Anxiety Disorder-7 scale. RESULTS: During the lockdown, disruptive impact on the PT practice was reported by most of the participants (80%). The majority of PT clinics/departments were either partially (43.8%) or completely (31.3%) shutdown, and therapists treated patients less than usual. Around 30% of participants reported using a telerehabilitation approach during the pandemic to communicate with patients, and about 33% received online courses and webinars to adapt the PT practice in response to the pandemic. About 21% of participants endured moderate to severe levels of anxiety, which was more pronounced among females. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the PT services in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, the number of patients treated was reduced, and therapists suffered notable psychological stress. Furthermore, although implemented, adaptive administrative measures were inadequate. Physical therapy practitioners and administrative authorities are encouraged to prioritize training and implementation of telerehabilitation as a likely prospective approach of PT practice.
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spelling pubmed-97338622022-12-10 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia Elsayed, Walaa Albagmi, Faisal Hussain, Mehwish Alghamdi, Mohammed Farrag, Ahmed PLoS One Research Article PURPOSE: The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant impact on the medical sector worldwide, including physical therapy (PT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the PT services, and the associated psychological distress endured by PT practitioners in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted to survey on-duty PT practitioners using a web-based questionnaire. Licensed PT practitioners working in Saudi Arabia (n = 265) participated and completed all the survey questions. The questionnaire comprised 30 questions covering the sociodemographic data and the outcome measures, which included the impact of the pandemic on the PT practice, use of telerehabilitation, administrative response during the pandemic, and PT practitioners’ anxiety measured by the General Anxiety Disorder-7 scale. RESULTS: During the lockdown, disruptive impact on the PT practice was reported by most of the participants (80%). The majority of PT clinics/departments were either partially (43.8%) or completely (31.3%) shutdown, and therapists treated patients less than usual. Around 30% of participants reported using a telerehabilitation approach during the pandemic to communicate with patients, and about 33% received online courses and webinars to adapt the PT practice in response to the pandemic. About 21% of participants endured moderate to severe levels of anxiety, which was more pronounced among females. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the PT services in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, the number of patients treated was reduced, and therapists suffered notable psychological stress. Furthermore, although implemented, adaptive administrative measures were inadequate. Physical therapy practitioners and administrative authorities are encouraged to prioritize training and implementation of telerehabilitation as a likely prospective approach of PT practice. Public Library of Science 2022-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9733862/ /pubmed/36490281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278785 Text en © 2022 Elsayed et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Elsayed, Walaa
Albagmi, Faisal
Hussain, Mehwish
Alghamdi, Mohammed
Farrag, Ahmed
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title_full Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title_short Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in Saudi Arabia
title_sort impact of the covid-19 pandemic on physical therapy practice in saudi arabia
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9733862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36490281
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278785
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