‘‘Identify the level of wheelchair skill capacity confidence and performance among the occupational therapy students of Bangladesh Health Professions Institute.”

Abstract

Wheelchair is an important part of people with disability and mobility difficulties. Most of person with disability depend on wheelchair for mobility and participate in society and daily living activities. Occupational therapist has a significant role along with other professionals in wheelchair skills training program. So, the appropriate knowledge of wheelchair skills capacity, confidence and performance is requiring to the occupational therapy students from their study period to support the patients and train the wheelchair users the professional need proper wheelchair skills for better performance in mobility and daily living activities. The objectives are to find out the level of wheelchair skills capacity, confidence, and performance of the Occupational Therapy student of Bangladesh Health Professions Institute, to determine the wheelchair skills capacity, confidence, performance and to find the association between socio-demographic factor and wheelchair skills capacity, confidence, performance, to determine the correlation between wheelchair skills capacity among the wheelchair skills confidence and performance. The descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in Bangladesh Health Professions Institute using WST-Q version 5.0, 70 occupational therapy students were selected purposively. Non-parametric test was used to determine the correlation among wheelchair skills capacity, confidence, performance and association between the demographic factors. Among the 70 participants, the total WST-Q capacity, confidence and performance of the occupational therapy students was good. The participants were 70% female and 30% of male. The mean age of the students is 21. The median values for WST-Q 8 capacity, WST-Q confidence, and WST-Q performance were 49.03%, 44.57% and 38.63%. The investigator also find out the total WST-Q capacity scores significantly correlated with total WST-Q confidence scores (r=.96; P<.00), total WST-Q capacity scores significantly correlated with the total WST-Q performance scores (r=.91; P<.00) and WST-Q confidence scores significantly correlated with the total WST-Q performance scores (r=.94; P<.00) There are some difficulties for the students to perform some advance wheelchair skills that would help them to train the patient more confidently and accurately. More intensive wheelchair skills training and practicing may improve the wheelchair skills capacity, confidence and performance that will enhance the ability in future professional sector for better support to the patients. Key word: Manual Wheelchair, Capacity, Performance, Confidence, Occupational Therapy Students.