Knowledge of COVID-19 and Awareness of Physiotherapy Rehabilitation among Clinical Physiotherapy Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Physiotherapy rehabilitation improves patients' activity in daily life and helps them return to work. Physiotherapy rehabilitation for COVID-19 patients mainly focuses on respiratory and functional rehabilitation assessment. This research project aims to assess the knowledge of COVID-19 and awareness of physiotherapy rehabilitation for COVID-19 patients among clinical physiotherapy students and the relationship between these variables.

METHODS: A preliminary, cross-sectional study was conducted on 159 clinical physiotherapy students from various education backgrounds. A three-part questionnaire assessing socio-demographic variables, knowledge of COVID-19 and awareness of physiotherapy rehabilitation for COVID-19 patients was distributed among clinical students from major physiotherapy programmes at tertiary institutions. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests and Spearman correlation tests were used for data analysis.

RESULTS: Most of the respondents (95.6%) were categorised as having an above average knowledge on COVID-19. Eighty-seven respondents (54.7%) were categorised as having an above average awareness of physiotherapy rehabilitation for COVID-19 patients. The knowledge of COVID-19 was positively correlated with awareness of physiotherapy rehabilitation (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: This research study showed that the knowledge of COVID-19 and awareness level of physiotherapy rehabilitation in COVID-19 patients was above average among clinical physiotherapy students. The association between knowledge of COVID-19 and awareness of physiotherapy rehabilitation among clinical physiotherapy students had a weak positive correlation.