PT and PA Students Differ in Perceptions, Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs about Persistent Pain?
Purpose/Hypothesis
The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences between Physician Assistants (PA) and Physical Therapy (PT) students in knowledge about pain neuroscience (PN), attitudes and beliefs about patients in pain, and perceived levels of preparedness to treat patients with persistent pain.
Subjects
Subjects included 23 PA (85% response rate) and 47 DPT (96% response rate) students from the same university during the closing weeks of their final clinical experience. PA and PT students were similar in age, gender, current pain level and history of personal or family history of persistent pain. PT students had attended more continuing education and read more articles and books related to PN.
Materials/Methods
Online surveys were emailed to all members of the 2019 cohort of PT and PA students followed by 3 reminder emails. Knowledge of PN was assessed using the Revised Neurophysiologic Pain Questionnaire (NPQ). Attitudes and beliefs about patients with persistent pain were assessed using the Health-care Provider’s Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale (HC-PAIRS). Perceived level of preparedness to treat patients in persistent pain was reported using a 0-10 scale. Comparisons between groups were made using the 2-sided independent samples t-test.
Results
PT student NPQ scores (10.00 +/- 1.20) were significantly different (p<0.01) than PA students’ (8.22 +/- 1.20). There was a significant difference (p=0.03) between HC-PAIRS scores for PT (49.81 +/- 8.34) and PA (54.78 +/- 9.65) students. PT students (5.81 +/-0.77) reported a different level (p<0.01) of perceived preparedness to treat patients with persistent pain than PA students (3.96 +/-1.23).
Conclusions
Students in programs with fully integrated pain neuroscience curricula had greater knowledge of PN, had more biopsychosocially informed attitudes and beliefs about patients and perceived they were more prepared to care for patients with persistent pain than those students who had not.
Clinical Relevance
Health professions curricula should include PN education to prepare students to effectively care for patients with persistent pain.