Factors Influencing the COVID-19 Infection Control Practice of Physical Therapists

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, awareness and performance of COVID-19 infection control among physical therapists and to identify the impact factors on performance Methods: Data were collected from March 16th to March 24th in 2022 from the physical therapist’s in Busan. Data analysis was conducted on 170 surveys, after excluding 27 surveys that were found to be unsuitable for data analysis. @*Results@#When correlating the study variables, knowledge and awareness were found to have a positive, meaningful correlation with performance. Performance of COVID-19 personal infection control regression analysis showed that the working department (clinic and long-term care hospital), clinical experience, the more knowledgeable, the awareness (personal), and the more clinical experience had significant positive impacts on the performance of COVID-19 infection control. Performance of COVID-19 treatment room infection control regression analysis showed that the working department (long-term care hospital), educational experience, the awareness (treatment room) had significant positive impacts on the performance of COVID-19 infection control Conclusion: The results of this study may be used as basic data for educating physical therapist’s working at the COVID-19 response department. This study suggests that physical therapist’s need educational programs to improve their knowledge and awareness and performance of infection control against infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Differentiated physical therapists practice education curricula must be developed and provided after understanding the varying characteristic of physical therapist’s with different levels of work experience.