Can a community of practice improve physical therapists’ self-perceived practice in developmental coordination disorder?

Abstract

Background. Communities of practice (CoPs) are useful knowledge translation (KT) strategies, but little is known about their impact on physical therapists’ self-perceived practice. Purpose. The impact of a CoP on physical therapists’ self-perceived practice was evaluated, and factors influencing changes in self-perceived knowledge, skills, and practice related to developmental coordination disorder (DCD) were explored. Design. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was used, guided by the Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior. Methods. Physical therapists participated in a DCD physical therapist CoP, which included 2 full-day, face-to-face workshops, with access to a 5-month online forum between the workshops, and completed questionnaires at 3 time-points: before the first workshop, before accessing the online forum, and following the second workshop. Measures completed before and after the CoP included closed-ended questions providing global scores on therapists’ self-perceived knowledge, skills, and practice. Physical therapists’ sociodemographic characteristics, information-seeking style, use of the online forum, and behavioral change goals were also collected. Paired t-tests, ANCOVAs, and linear regression models were used to analyze the data. Results. Forty-one physical therapists completed all questionnaires. Their self-perceived knowledge, skills, and practice change scores were significantly higher (+0.47, +1.23, and +2.61, respectively; P