Patient reported outcomes from a student-led physical therapy clinic in two medically underserved areas

Student-led physical therapy (PT) clinics are a standard component of many entry-level PT curricula; however, reports on the operating procedures and patient outcomes of these clinics are limited. Therefore, our aim is to provide a descriptive report of a student-led, faculty-supervised PT clinic and to report available patient reported functional outcomes.

The clinic maintains a database of de-identified patient information for quality assurance and improvement purposes. The following data from a period of one academic year were retrospectively analyzed from this database: demographic information, referring diagnosis, visit frequency, and score on the Patient Specific Functional Scale (PSFS), a patient-reported functional measure. Descriptive statistics were used to aggregate demographic and visit information, and a Wilcoxon-signed rank test was used to compare the first recorded PSFS score to the last recorded PSFS score of patients who attended multiple visits.

Five hundred eight patients were treated for a total of 1000 visits. Thirty-eight percent of patients returned for at least one follow-up visit. Statistically significant improvements in PSFS scores (+1.49,Z = -6.934, p < .001, 95% CI [1.00,1.75]) were achieved in patients who attended multiple visits, with 33% improving by the minimally clinically important difference for their condition.

In addition to student learning opportunities, student-led PT clinics can result in statistically significant and clinically important improvements in patient-reported function for those who attend more than one visit.