Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorM. McPhail, Steven
dc.contributor.authorWaite, Monique C.
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T16:17:25Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T16:17:25Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.identifier.issn17456673
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/1745-6673-9-1
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/66869
dc.description.abstractBackground Physiotherapists are a professional group with a high rate of attrition and at high risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the physical activity levels and health-related quality of life of physiotherapists working in metropolitan clinical settings in an Australian hospital and health service. It was hypothesized that practicing physiotherapists would report excellent health-related quality of life and would already be physically active. Such a finding would add weight to a claim that general physical activity conditioning strategies may not be useful for preventing musculoskeletal disorders among active healthy physiotherapists, but rather, future investigations should focus on the development and evaluation of role specific conditioning strategies. Methods A questionnaire was completed by 44 physiotherapists from three inpatient units and three ambulatory clinics (63.7% response rate). Physical activity levels were reported using the Active Australia Survey. Health-related quality of life was examined using the EQ-5D instrument. Physical activity and EQ-5D data were examined using conventional descriptive statistics; with domain responses for the EQ-5D presented in a frequency histogram. Results The majority of physiotherapists in this sample were younger than 30 years of age (n?=?25, 56.8%) consistent with the presence of a high attrition rate. Almost all respondents exceeded minimum recommended physical activity guidelines (n?=?40, 90.9%). Overall the respondents engaged in more vigorous physical activity (median?=?180 minutes) and walking (median?=?135 minutes) than moderate exercise (median?=?35 minutes) each week. Thirty-seven (84.1%) participants reported no pain or discomfort impacting their health-related quality of life, with most (n?=?35,79.5%) being in full health. Conclusions Physical-conditioning based interventions for the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders among practicing physiotherapists may be better targeted to role or task specific conditioning rather than general physical conditioning among this physically active population. It is plausible that an inherent attrition of physiotherapists may occur among those not as active or healthy as therapists who cope with the physical demands of clinical practice. Extrapolation of findings from this study may be limited due to the sample characteristics. However, this investigation addressed the study objectives and has provided a foundation for larger scale longitudinal investigations in this field.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.description.publicationstatusYes
dc.format.extent419762 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherBioMed Central
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom
dc.relation.ispartofstudentpublicationN
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom1
dc.relation.ispartofpageto9
dc.relation.ispartofissue1
dc.relation.ispartofjournalJournal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology
dc.relation.ispartofvolume9
dc.rights.retentionY
dc.subject.fieldofresearchOrthopaedics
dc.subject.fieldofresearchEnvironmental and Occupational Health and Safety
dc.subject.fieldofresearchOther Medical and Health Sciences
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode110314
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode111705
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode1199
dc.titlePhysical activity and health-related quality of life among physiotherapists: a cross sectional survey in an Australian hospital and health service
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
dcterms.licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
gro.rights.copyright© 2014 McPhail and Waite; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorWaite, Monique


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

  • Journal articles
    Contains articles published by Griffith authors in scholarly journals.

Show simple item record