Knowledge and perception of physiotherapy among healthcare science students at the Maldives National University

Physiotherapy is a crucial profession of interdisciplinary medical team, in which healthcare professionals need to comprehend the duties of other members in the team to offer a holistic management to the patients. Healthcare professionals who uphold negative beliefs and perceptions about other healthcare professions can be a barrier to ‘patient- centered’ approach. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on knowledge and awareness of physiotherapy by healthcare professionals or students. There has been no study conducted in the Maldives to investigate the knowledge and perception of physiotherapy by healthcare students. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore the knowledge and perceptions among healthcare science students at The Maldives National University (MNU). 

A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), School of Nursing (SN), and School of Medicine (SM). A stratified random sampling method was adopted to recruit the participants. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain the data from the participants. The data was analyzed using the SPSS version 25.

A total of 318 students from three different schools and faculties of MNU participated in the study. The mean age of the respondents was 23 ± 4, with 89.9% being female. The overall K-score of 12 indicated poor knowledge, whereas the P-score of 10 reflected a positive perception among the participants, with no significant difference observed between genders. The Kruska-Wallis test indicated a significant difference in K-score across courses and years of study enrolled.

This study’s findings revealed a disparity between healthcare students’ positive perception towards physiotherapy and their lack of knowledge regarding the profession, indicating barriers to knowledge acquisition. Significant differences were found between different healthcare courses and years of study.