Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of an interactive educational intervention on a physiotherapy guideline for hip and knee osteoarthritis.
Method: Physiotherapists were randomly allocated to a 3-h interactive educational course with the collaboration of three patient partners or no intervention. Assessments comprised questionnaires on adherence (score range 0-24), knowledge (score range 0-76), and barriers to use the guideline (score range 0-80). Assessments were conducted 1 week before the interactive course (T0) immediately after (T1), and 3 months thereafter (T2). Change scores were compared between the groups by means of Mann-Whitney U tests and linear mixed models.
Results: 284 of 4328 eligible PTs (7%) were included. The intervention (n = 133) was significantly more effective than no intervention (n = 151) concerning self-reported adherence and knowledge with mean differences in change scores (95% CI) at T1 and T2 being 1.4 (0.7-2.0) and 0.9 (0.2-1.7) for adherence and 6.8 (4.5-9.1) and 3.9 (1.7-6.2) for knowledge, (all p values < 0.005). In both groups the barrier score increased at T1 and decreased at T2, with a significantly larger increase at T1 and decrease at T2 in the intervention group (mean differences 3.1 (1.8-4.4) and 3.3 (0.5-6.1), respectively.
Conclusions: A short interactive educational course with patient participation on a PT guideline on hip and knee osteoarthritis showed a small to moderate positive effect on self-reported guideline adherence and knowledge, whereas for perceived barriers an advantage was only seen on the longer term.
Keywords: Education; guidelines; osteoarthritis; physiotherapy.