Physiotherapists' Practices on Assessing Hospitalised Older Patients: What Are the Current Gaps?

Incorporating Person-centred Care (PCC) and Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) practices for hospitalised patients result in positive health outcomes. We aimed to identify the frequency of incorporating PCC and CGA practices among physiotherapists (PTs) working in hospitals and its association with PTs' gender, years of experience, and duration of physiotherapy sessions and to identify the barriers to assessing older patients in the hospital.

Cross-sectional survey with physiotherapists working in hospitals using a questionnaire including PTs characteristics, barriers and the frequency of incorporation of PCC and CGA practices, using a Likert scale. An ordinal regression analysis was conducted.

Male PTs, compared to females, were less likely to consider the patient's and family's feelings (OR = 0.35; p = < 0.001), use appropriate language (OR = 0.42; p = 0.04), embrace the patient's feelings (OR = 0.28; p = < 0.001), adapts their communication (OR = 0.33; p = 0.006) and used encouragement and negotiation strategies (OR = 0.52; p = 0.02). Less experienced PTs (< 2 years) tended not to value older patients' choices (OR = 0.08; p = 0.03), share assessments with families (OR = 0.39; p < 0.001), define a care plan (OR = 0.61; p = 0.02), and embrace the patient's feelings, compared to more experienced ones. PTs conducting quick assessments (< 10 min) were less likely to provide feedback (OR = 0.26; p = 0.006), share assessments with families (OR = 0.09; p < 0.001), define a care plan (OR = 0.22; p < 0.001), assess social conditions (OR = 0.34; p = 0.009), falls (OR = 0.06; p = 0.007), sarcopenia (OR = 0.18; p = 0.002), frailty (OR = 0.27; p = 0.006), provide prognosis (OR = 0.29; p = 0.002), consider older patients' goals (OR = 0.21; p = 0.04) and plan discharge (OR = 0.23; p < 0.001). The main barriers were related to patients' health conditions and the limitations of time and resources.

Incorporating PCC and CGA practices by PTs in the hospital seems to be linked to the characteristics of PTs and their availability of time. Educational and organizational interventions to foster PCC and CGA are needed.