Job Evaluation of Clinical Physiotherapists in the South West of Nigeria

Abstract

Background ofthe study: Resourcefulness is the quality of being able to cope with a difficult situation and have imaginative abilities while service development processes allow the building and testing of services and related component. The involvement of physiotherapists in supervision, administration, teaching and research in health sciences is yet to be ascertained.

Aims: The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate level of involvement of clinical physiotherapists in administration, teaching, research and policy formulation, human resources and information technology.

Method: One hundred (100) copies of self-administered questionnaire adopted from National Health services job evaluation questionnaire were administered to physiotherapists in selected Federal and State Hospitals. The response rate was 71 %. The data was analysed using descriptive Statistic.

Results: The result showed that 97.2%,84.5%,76.6% and 58.5% of clinicians were resourceful in effective patient communication, analytical skill, patient care and freedom of action respectively. Also 10% carried out research regularly and 35.2% carried it out occasionally. About 47.9% and 80.3% were resourceful in human resources management and policy formulation respectively for physiotherapists in the chief cadre. The assistant Chief Physiotherapists were found to be more resourceful than the Chief Physiotherapists in the area of resource management. The study further showed that only 17.4% of the physiotherapists were involved in utilizing information technology.

Conclusion: This study concluded that clinicians are not highly resourceful especially in the areas of human resources, policy and research, and information technology but were involved in effective communication, judgment and analytical skills, patient care and have freedom of actions.

KEY WORDS: Resourcefulness, Administration, Physiotherapy, Policy