Assessing rehabilitation professionals' attitudes toward measuring outcomes in stroke community rehabilitation in Scotland

Background: Outcome measurement is of fundamental importance in any rehabilitative care system and is integral to quality improvement methodologies. To date little research has focused on the attitudes of community-based rehabilitation professionals that may influence the choice and routine use of these measures in clinical practice.

Aim: To determine rehabilitation professionals' attitude toward measuring outcomes in community-based stroke rehabilitation practice in Scotland

Method: We used 10 items to determine professional attitudes. Items were generated on the basis of a literature review, observations in rehabilitation practice and expert consultation. Senior community based rehabilitation therapists were recruited from all 14 health boards in Scotland.

Results: N=104 community based rehabilitation professionals (47 physiotherapists, 35 occupational therapists, 18 speech and language therapists, 4 not disclosed) across Scotland completed the 10 attitude items. 95% were UK trained and 68.3% had more than 11 years of work experience as therapists. 94% agreed that outcome measurement are essential to clinical practice, only 14.4% believed it was better to use clinical judgment, 30.8% thought outcome measurement is burdensome to patients. Only 8.7% thought using outcome measures would take valuable time away from patient treatment. Differences between professions were found for freedom of measure choice (x2=9.87;p=.043 ;Cramer's V =.22).

Conclusions: Professional attitudes to the use of outcome measures in rehabilitation practice are largely positive. Freedom to choose outcome measures is perceived to differ between professions.