The job satisfaction of physical therapists.

Ten statements were created for the purpose of measuring job satisfaction in the practise of physiotherapy. The subjects consisted of 96 of the 106 (90%) of the physical therapists licensed with the Texas State Board of Physical Therapy Examiners, and listed as residing in El Paso, Texas, USA. To indicate their job satisfaction, subjects indicated on a seven-point scale their level of agreement or disagreement with each statement. They then indicated on a different seven-point scale how important they thought each statement was to their job satisfaction. The results indicated that subjects thought that their jobs were challenging in a positive sense; enabled them to use their abilities; and were interesting. They also thought that they had sufficient independence in decision-making; were learning and improving in their work; and were given significant autonomy. The most dissatisfying aspect of their work was the amount of paperwork. In addition, the results suggest that some subjects may feel overworked, and think their jobs may be too physically demanding and mentally stressful. The subjects felt that all the statements had validity and measured important aspects of job satisfaction in physical therapy.

Honest and faked responses on the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale--Form A.

This study was completed by Dr Speakman while he was Associated Professor and Chairman of the Department of Rehabilitation in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zimbabwe. At that time Andrew Tembo was a physical therapy student and Sarah Hendry was an occupational therapy student. In recent years there has been increased interest in the attitudes held towards disabled persons by physiotherapy students and physiotherapists. Research on this topic has been conducted in Canada, Australia, the USA, and South Africa. In every one of these studies the instrument used to measure attitudes was one of the three forms of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scales (ATDPS). A major shortcoming of self-report scales such as the ATDPS is that they can often be faked. If the scales contain "transparent" statements, that is, statements to which the socially desirable answer is obvious or seems obvious, the subjects may be tempted to fake their responses. It is therefore important to determine if a self-report scale can be faked. Of the five studies that have been undertaken to determine if the ATDPS are fakeable, four have indicated that they are not, while one has demonstrated that they are. As it seems that the ATDPS will continue to be the instrument of choice in the measurement of attitudes toward disabled persons by physiotherapy students and physiotherapists, it is important that this question be resolved.

A scale for the measurement of attitudes toward physically disabled adults.

The ATDPs have been the instruments most commonly used for the measurement of attitudes toward disabled persons. However, it has become increasingly apparent that these scales have serious shortcomings and that a new scale is due. A New Scale was developed for the purpose of measuring attitudes towards permanently and seriously physically disabled adults. The subjects used for the development of this scale consisted of students studying for a Bachelor of Science degree in physiotherapy. The scale has 50 scored statements and 25 interest statements. The scored statements were created so that they could not be answered on the basis of factual knowledge, and would be difficult to answer on the basis of remembered experience and reasonable argument. The interest statements did not contribute to the subject's score and were included for the purpose of keeping the subject's interest in responding to all the statements on the scale. A psychometric analysis of the 50 scored statements demonstrated that the New Scale has excellent discriminative ability, internal consistency, and reliability, good validity, and that the influence of agreement response and social desirability is minimal. In addition it is believed that the New Scale has a high degree of unidimensionality.

Attitudes of physical therapists in Wisconsin toward disabled persons.

This article contains descriptive statistics on attitudes toward disabled persons of a population of physical therapist. The instrument used to measure attitudes was the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale-Form A. The population for this study was the 553 physical therapists listed in the 1976-77 Directory of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Physical Therapy Association, and living in Wisconsin. From this population, a sample of 125 (22.5%) completed and returned the form. A table of normative data in the form of percentiles was developed, along with a table of descriptive statistics that include the median, the quartile deviation, and measures of skewness and kurtosis.

The "fakeability" of the attitudes toward disabled persons scale: form B.

The purpose of this study was to provide evidence for or against the "fakeability" of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale: Form B. Form B of the Scale was administered to 25 women, between the ages of 19 and 24, studying at a midwestern university. Seven days later, the subjects retook the test and were instructed to fake their answers so that they would receive a higher score. The difference between the true scores and the fake scores were not found to be significant, and it was concluded that the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale: Form B is not "fakeable."

A study of cross-education in strength.

Cross-education has long been an area of interest. The term is credited to Scripture et al. (1894), who initiated the first series of studies in this area. These studies were mainly in the field of psychology and it was known that if a subject practised writing with one hand, skill was gained in writing with the other hand. DeLorme (1945), experimenting with adaption of weight-lifting procedures to the treatment of various disabilities of the skeletomuscular system, observed that unilateral exercise of the progressive-resistance type was associated with a concurrent development of increased strength in the symmetric muscle groups of the contralateral limb. Thus began the second series of studies, which were performed mainly by physicians and physical therapists. Hellebrandt, Parrish and Houtz (1947) suggested that neuromuscular cross-education may have a therapeutic use: where volitional control is defective, powerful isometric contraction may be evoked reflexly. Many theories have been put forward regarding the cause of cross-education of strength, none have yet been accepted to the exclusion of the others. In the opinion of this writer, it may be brought about in two ways: 1. By reflex isometric contractions occurring in the contralateral limb while the ipsilateral limb is being exercised. Hellebrandt et al. (ibid.) noticed that while subjects performed resisted knee extension exercises with one leg, the quadriceps of the other leg worked isometrically. Hansen (1961), Mathews et al. (1957) and Rarick and Larson (1962) have shown that isometric contractions will increase muscular strength. This possible cause of cross-education is referred to here as cross-training. 2. The skill learned by performing a strengthening exercise with one limb may bring about an increase in strength in the contralateral limb. Rasch and Morehouse (1957) found that subjects who trained isotonically in the standing position demonstrated a greater improvement in strength when they were tested in the familiar standing position rather than an unfamiliar lying position. They suggested that the gain recorded in the lying position was the true increase in strength, and that the difference between this score and the standing score was due to improvement in skill. This possible cause of cross-education will be referred to as cross-learning.