Exploring the experiential learning of patient education for doctor of physical therapy students at an academic medical center : a qualitative single case study.
Physical therapists use recommended patient education techniques infrequently. Improper patient education decreases a patient's health outcomes and contributes to increased healthcare costs. To help combat this problem, global health initiatives have called upon healthcare professionals to include patient education training within their entry-level curricula. Student physical therapists' patient education training occurs in simulated and classroom environments. As such, student physical therapists report a lack of real-world experiential learning opportunities for patient education delivery. Since the entry-level physical therapy curriculum requires integrated clinical education experiences, experiential learning's role in improving student physical therapists' patient education delivery competency is unknown. Kolb's experiential learning theory guided this qualitative single-case study. I observed nine student physical therapists providing patient education during their experiential learning activity. I conducted follow-up semi-structured interviews and sent an open-ended online qualitative survey to collect additional data on their clinical experiences. The Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program I selected had an established experiential learning experience in its curriculum. The study focused on specific ways the participants interacted in a cycle of learning when providing patient education. The purpose of the qualitative single case study was to explore DPT students' perceptions of their experiential learning cycle during an inpatient integrated clinical education experience. Findings indicated that student physical therapists found using recommended patient education practices effective during their experiential learning in an inpatient setting. My findings also demonstrated that student physical therapists moved through Kolb's cycle of learning when providing patient education; however, they had variable reflection opportunities and fluctuating learning applications, which may hinder learning patient education. DPT Clinical Education administrators need to adapt experiential learning curricula to include reflective prompts related to patient education and learning objectives for actively experimenting with new patient education concepts. Enhancing student learning can help future clinicians provide effective patient education to help reduce health inequalities and improve patient outcomes.
Patient education., Student physical therapists., Integrated clinical education experience., Experiential learning., Kolb's experiential learning theory., Inpatient., Clinical education.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations