Development of entrustable professional activities for a physiotherapy undergraduate programme in Singapore

The concept of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) as an assessment framework is new to undergraduate physiotherapy training in Singapore. The physiotherapy community was tasked to develop EPAs to reflect the core professional activities of an entry-level physiotherapist for its undergraduate programme.

A qualitative participatory approach was used to develop entry-level EPAs for undergraduate physiotherapy students. Four phases occurred; (1) formation and training of the EPA writing workgroup from different sectors of the physiotherapy industry in Singapore; (2) conceptualization of the framework; (3) writing EPAs and; (4) iteration of EPAs through reflection, revision and consensus building.

Five core activities were identified for undergraduate physiotherapy students to perform upon graduation and were developed into entry-level EPAs. These entry-level EPAs were subsequently termed as core EPAs to reflect the core practices expected at entry level across specialties and sectors in Singapore. These EPAs were mapped to five competency domains and 12 competency descriptors. The sources of information to support entrustment decisions were (1) short practice observation, (2) entrustment-based discussion and (3) case notes evaluation. Remote supervision was selected as the level of entrustment that physiotherapy students must attain at graduation.

The development of EPAs utilized a ground-up and cross-sector approach to define entry-level EPAs as core physiotherapy activities expected to be performed and assessed during clinical training by undergraduate physiotherapy students. Future research is needed to validate the use of EPAs as an assessment framework for undergraduate physiotherapy education.