Factores que influyen en el uso de los protocolos clínicos, según la opinión de los fisioterapeutas de los centros de salud de la región de Murcia

Abstract

Objectives: to find the factors that affect the use of clinical protocolos in Primary Health Care, in the view of Primary Health Care physiotherapists, the reasons why they are little followed and to bring together suggestions for improvement. Design: an opinion study was developed though a telephone survey. The studied field are 18 physiotherapy departments at Primary Health Care in Murcia (autonomous Community). The participants are 21 physiotherapists that work in these departments. Main results: after a pilot study, a structured telephone survey was carried out, administered by a trained interviewer who posed two open questions: why do you think that physiotherapists at your area do no use the protocols more often?, and what suggestions would you make to have the protocols used more? The field-work was done in January 2000. There was a 90.9% reply date. To the first question, physiotherapists think that low use could be explained by mediating attendance by doctor's criterions, by few update recommendations and few flexibility before unexpected situations (42.5% of all replies). To the second question, the most mentioned suggestion has been to carry out consensus meetings to design protocols (13.7%). Conclusions: physiotherapists assumed that the clinical protocols were used little and the key to using them more is to improve the organization and protocol document.