How do physiotherapists define health? – results of a questionnaire study

Łukasz J. Krzych, Mateusz Ziemba, Michał Wyder, Krystian Oleszczyk, Anna Zielińska-Meus, Jacek Durmała

Ł. J. Krzych, M. Ziemba, M. Wyder, K. Oleszczyk, A. Zielińska-Meus, J. Durmała: How do physiotherapists define health? – results of a questionnaire study. Fizjoterapia Polska 2015;15(3);56-63

Abstract

Introduction. A physiotherapist should know methods used in health assessment, basic definitions and psychosocial mechanism driving health and its prevention. The aim of this study was to assess opinions of physiotherapist about health with aligned basic determinants.
Methods. This cross-sectional study involved 117 subjects, 91 (77.7%) females and 28 (22.3%) males, aged 38 ± 10 years. Polish version of a standardized Ewles and Simnett questionnaire was applied. The poll consisted of 23 questions about 4 components of health: physical (7 questions), mental (6 questions), social (5 questions) and health as a lack of disease (5 questions). Subject chose all of possible 23 answers their agreed with. Percentage of given answers was calculated. On this basis, a dominant domain was established.
Results. Subjects agreed with 64.5% of all opinions of a questionnaire. Most frequently they chose those related to social (80%), then physical (71.4%) and finally to mental (66.7%) components of health. Health as a lack of disease was declared less frequently (60%). After categorization of individual answers, we found that physiotherapists defined health as the bio-psycho-social condition (38.9% of persons). Age, education level, marital status, place of work and number of years in profession were not associated with given opinions.
Conclusions. More than half of investigated physiotherapists define health inappropriately. Gender influences subjects’ opinions about health. Questionnaire formula of the study is its limitation, so the results need to be verified in further researches.

Key words:
health, questionnaire, opinions, physiotherapy, physiotherapist

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