Pelvic Anatomy Dissection Video for Women's Health Physical Therapists
Authors: Carroll Melissa A. , Luciani Jen , Clements Elizabeth A. , Snowden Karen 
Published: June 2021

The purpose of this study was to evaluate clinician satisfaction and perceived level of accomplishment with an instructional pelvic dissection video. Accomplishment was measured in three domains: (1) technical quality, (2) instructional relevance and (3) usefulness. The researchers originally created the video as an educational intervention for a pelvic physical therapy (PT) certification course. However, the instructional video itself was not assessed for satisfaction and accomplishment. This study surveyed the American Physical Therapy Association's (APTA) Section on Women's Health members for direct feedback on the instructional video. This research was approved by the University IRB.

Demographic information and perceived confidence in assessing, diagnosing, and treating pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) were used to characterize expert and novice clinicians. Respondents' perceptions of prior pelvic anatomy training were collected and the effects of respondent characteristics on their level of perceived video satisfaction and the perception of video accomplishment were examined. It was our hypothesis that novice women's health physical therapists (WHPTs) would find the video more satisfying and accomplished than the experts.

Satisfaction was assessed on a 5‐point Likert scale ranging from 1 (extremely unsatisfied) to 5 (extremely satisfied), allowing a comparison of all respondents' contentment with the instructional video. Level of accomplishment was assessed on a 6‐point Likert scale ranging from 1 (did not accomplish) to 6 (excellent accomplishment). This quantitative scale was assigned to a total of 15 items allowing aggregation of Likert scale responses for each of the three domains (measured on average with five individual items) allowing a comparison of expert and novice clinicians.

Total response rate for the survey was 85.9% (N=140) with a 48.6% (n=68) total completion rate. Respondents were first divided into experts (53.2%) and novices (46.8%) based on experience treating the pelvic floor; these categories were further qualified by perceived confidence in assessing, diagnosing and treating PFD (Table). Both experts (89.2%) and novices (70.2%) felt that anatomy taught in physical therapy school did not prepare them to treat PFD. On average all WHPTs were satisfied with the instructional video (3.984 ± 1.109; CI 95% [3.708 – 4.260]). There was no significant relationship between years treating the pelvic floor and satisfaction with the pelvic dissection video, X2(4)=3.651, p=0.455. There was a statistically significant difference between experts' and novices' perception of technical quality t(45.6)=2.354, p=0.023; CI 95% [0.077 – 0.991], however both groups felt that the dissection video accomplished average to good technical quality, instructional relevance, and usefulness (Figure).

Although novice WHPTs were more likely to perceive the instructional pelvic dissection video as more accomplished, there was no difference between experts' and novices' positive satisfaction with the video. This is significant because both experts and novices felt ill‐prepared to treat PFD with pelvic anatomy training from PT school alone. Therefore it can be concluded producing anatomical videos of good quality, focused specifically on pelvic anatomy, can be relevant and useful for WHPTs.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.