Nurses’ Perception of Physiotherapists in Selected Hospitals in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

Perception may differ considerably from one professional group to another. The inter-professional perception the Nurses have of Physiotherapists  (PTs) may likely impact on work efficiency as health care team members. The purpose of this study is to evaluate Nurses’ perception of  physiotherapists as colleagues in health care practice. The methods used in this study are; a total of 150 Nurses were recruited to participate in this  study using purposive sampling technique from different Hospitals (Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital and  National Orthopaedic Hospital Dala) in Kano, Nigeria. Inter-professional perception scales (IPS) questionnaire was administered to the Nurses after  their consents were obtained. A total number of 137 (91.33%) nurses responded. Descriptive statistics of mean, frequency and percentages were  used to summarise the data (SPSS version 16.0). The results obtained were: The findings showed that majority (70.7%) of the respondents were  females and 73.7% of them were certificate/diploma holders with only 13.9% having a first degree. The mean age of all participants was 36.9±2  years. Specifically all the respondents reported good perception of Physiotherapists in areas of competency, autonomy, understanding capabilities  of nurses, being defensive of their prerogatives and cooperative in relating with Nurses. Most of them perceive PTs to be concerned with patients’  welfare, highly ethical, fully utilise their capabilities, do not encroach on their professional territories, do not expect too much from them and are  well trained. All the respondents (100%) however, disagree that PTs have a higher professional status and 83.2% of them do not trust PTs  professional judgement. It was concluded that most Nurses had a positive perception of Physiotherapists in most areas of professional practice  except in professional status and judgement.