Thiago Santos, Marco Antonio Filho, Luciana Figueiredo, Tiago Giraldi, Mario Franco, Ramon Paredes, Lidiane Souza

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Lung ultrasound is not yet widespread among physiotherapists (PEs). Therefore, as part of an educational project, we did two lung POCUS courses, followed by a feedback questionnaire (FQ) for the participants. The aim was to assess their impressions based on the self-determination theory (SDT).

INTRODUCTION

Despite the important role of Lung ultrasound for the assistance of patients, its use is not yet widespread among physiotherapists (PEs).

Therefore, as part of an educational project for this purpose, we did two blended-learning lung POCUS courses. By the end of the courses, we proposed a feedback questionnaire (FQ) for the participants.

The aim was to assess their impressions based on the self-determination theory (SDT). According to SDT, intrinsic motivation depends on the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. .

METHODS

This was a unicentric Study in a tertiary university Hospital in Campinas, Brazil. We provided online theoretical classes (2-hour total time) as a pre-requisite.

In the day of the course, we performed a quick review (30 minutes); hands-on sessions (knobology, lung ultrasound and image storing, 2.5 hours), and a clinical simulation using our US simulator prototype (one hour).

The FQ had four Likert-scale questions with additional space for opinions. We performed descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis, the latter by means of Atlas. TI software.

RESULTS

All 18 participating PEs responded the FQ. For 88.9% of PEs, the new concepts will be able to improve their clinical reasoning, and all of them felt motivated to learn more about the subject.

However, 38.8% agreed partially they feel ready to perform bedside exams in sick patients. In addition, 94.5% believe they will be more able to interact with the medical team after the course.

Regarding the SDT, the improvement in autonomy was frequently observed, in quotations like “POCUS is a semiological tool that facilitates our work as physiotherapists. Therefore we can diagnose lung pathologies early and choose the best decision.

“The POCUS’ course improved students’ sense of competency: “With the help of ultrasound technology we can quickly diagnose and intervene for the resolution of pulmonary alterations of patients”.

The PEs also think POCUS can improve their relatedness to multidisciplinary team: “With the newly acquired knowledge, the interaction between the multidisciplinary team will be better.

We will know what is really happening (in some cases) and this will help us take better decisions”.

CONCLUSION

The POCUS course impacted on all the three basic psychological needs required to foster the development of intrinsic motivation for learning lung POCUS.

The PC is the region where the student found more difficulties in identifying IAFF by US.