Venasio Ramabuke
Fiji National University
Title: Clinical education: An analysis of clinical reasoning amongst physiotherapy students in Fiji
Biography
Biography: Venasio Ramabuke
Abstract
Clinical reasoning is a key competency in any physiotherapy clinical education academic program. A clear and structured thought process informing practice is critical in the clinician’s ability to make good decisions. 41 undergraduate physiotherapy students, in their 3rd and 4th year from the Fiji National University were assessed on their ability to make decisions on ill-defined cues via clinical vignettes. The Script Concordance Test (SCT) with the pass mark standardized at one standard deviation from the class mean score was the assessment tool used to analyze diagnostic clinical reasoning in undergraduate physiotherapy students. Third year students demonstrated a mean score of 59.32%±8.03 while the fourth years scored a slightly higher mean score of 64.97%±10.17 in concordance to the reference norms set by the expert clinicians. There were no significant differences between the 3th to 4th year (p value=0.29) and the 3rd year to the expert (p value=0.40) scores. There were also no significant differences in the 4th year to the expert (p value=0.55) scores. Increasing exposure to clinical experience may have had some effect on increasing levels of clinical reasoning but was not significant. An exposure to an environment that allows for harnessing of thinking skills may be more important in leveraging clinical making abilities. Interventions that help students make good decisions is crucial in training them to be good clinicians. The SCT is a valid assessment tool for psychometric analysis of clinical reasoning amongst physiotherapy students.