Impact of Sociodemographic Variables on Physical Therapists' Documentation of Physical Activity Levels

To examine how physical therapists document physical activity (PA) and how sociodemographic variables impact physical therapists' PA documentation.

Cross-sectional analysis of electronic health records.

An outpatient physical therapy clinic located within a large learning health system.

We randomly selected 10,000 initial evaluations (N=10,000) completed between 2018 and 2024 by the participating clinic's 35 physical therapists.

The documentation of patients' PA.

Our main outcome was physical therapists' documentation of patients' PA levels. When PA was documented, we examined the presence or absence of the following documentation components: (1) strength, aerobic, or balance-based PA; and (2) frequency, intensity, time, and type/mode (FITT). Logistic regressions were conducted to examine how sociodemographic variables impacted PA documentation.

Among the 4597 (45.97%) patients with documented PA, 2693 (58.59%) had 1 type of PA documented (ie, aerobic, strength, and balance). When we examined how PA documentation aligned with the FITT components, we identified that 9/4597 (<1%) documentation included all the FITT components. The odds of having PA documented via FITT components decreased among individuals who identify as non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic, and those with increased social vulnerability.

Three major documentation gaps identified include the: (1) lack of PA documentation; (2) PA is not documented using the FITT components; and (3) sociodemographic variables impact if and how PA is documented.