Models of physiotherapy clinical education in south-West Nigeria

Background: Clinical education is an essential component of physiotherapy education programs worldwide. Different models of providing clinical education exist all over the world. It appears that there is no published literature on the models of clinical education used in the training of physiotherapy undergraduates in Nigeria.

 

Aim: The study investigated the models of physiotherapy clinical education in South West Nigeria.

 

Methods: Seventy four (45 males, 29 females) physiotherapy educators participated in this cross-sectional population-based survey. They were recruited from the three university institutions in South- West Nigeria that run physiotherapy programs and their associated teaching hospitals. A self-developed, validated questionnaire was used to solicit information on the models of clinical education being used in undergraduate physiotherapy training in South Western Nigeria. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation and percentages.

 

Results: Participants were aged 38±7 years. 53 (71%) participants had postgraduate qualifications. 22 (29.7%) participants reported that they had received formal training in clinical education prior to this study. Over half of the participants (40, 54.1%) reported the shared responsibility model (both clinician and lecturer based) to be the most commonly used model of clinical education. The least reported (8.1%) model was the designated clinical educator model (clinician based).

 

Conclusion: It can be concluded from this study that the most commonly reported model of clinical education is the shared responsibility model (both clinician and lecturer based). The development of a standardized model of physiotherapy clinical education is recommended. Training programmes should be organized for physiotherapy educators on clinical education.