Perception Of Medical Practitioners Regarding Patient Referral to Physiotherapy

The purpose of this study is to give us an insight into the current perceptions held by other professionals who are currently practicing medicine regarding patient referral to physiotherapy. Methods: A self-designed Questionnaire was distributed among the medical practitioners that were currently working various hospitals and clinics which were currently operational and were located in various regions of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The required questionnaires were filled within a period of 3 months. Results: Out of Total 225, 57% were males and 43% were females. Participants on the base of their specialties were 55% from general practice, 45% from medical specialties. The referral rate among the participants showed that 14% participants did not refer any patients at all, 22% Rarely referred patients, 49% referred patients sometimes and 15% participants referred on a regular basis.30% respondents referred patients with a prescription and 70% referred patients with a prescription did not believe that a physiotherapist cannot devise an action plan without proper instruction. While 53% medical doctors included a specified medical diagnosis in their and 47% that include a medical diagnosis said that this was not the cause of including it in referrals.Conclusion: It was concluded that, participants were found to have well response about the patient referral to physiotherapy, the likelihood of referral is good and majority of participants admit physiotherapy as autonomous profession and have opinion that physiotherapist are trained enough to determine the right treatment for their patients.Methods:  This is an observational study; cross sectional survey with 306 estimated sample size 288 participants were respondents but remaining 18 were non respondents and data is collected from students of sports sciences department in mentioned universities using Kujala Scoring questionnaire. Data is entered and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results: The results shows that age of participants were between 19 to 25 years. Number of male (62.15%) participants were more than female (37.85%) participants. prevalence of PFP among sports sciences students is 63.54%(  N=183)  with  mild or no symptoms of anterior knee pain, 26.74%(N=77) with  moderate symptoms and  9.72% (N=28)  with severe symptoms of Patellofemoral pain syndrome. Conclusion: According to the results we concluded that there is mild or no symptoms of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome in 63.54 % Sports Sciences Students in Lahore,26.74 % Sport Sciences Students have moderate symptoms of Anterior Knee joint Pain and 9.72% Sports Sciences Students have severe Symptoms of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome