ArticleHuman resources for health2021
The physiotherapy workforce in the Brazilian Unified Health Care System.
Article in Human resources for health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- 'Sometimes I feel like the only physio in the whole wide world, so alone'.The South African journal of physiotherapy · 2025Article
- Physiotherapy and its service in Nepal: implementation and status reported from facility surveys and official registers.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- The physiotherapy workforce in Nepal: A national survey.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2023Article
- Chronic hemodialysis patients with COVID-19 cared for by the public health system have higher mortality than those treated in private facilities: analysis of the Brazilian dialysis registry.International urology and nephrology · 2023Article
- The distribution of registered occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and podiatrists in Australia.PloS one · 2023Article
- Describing the Rehabilitation Workforce Capacity in the Public Sector of Three Rural Provinces in South Africa: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Rehabilitation workforce descriptors: a scoping review.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Article
- Physical therapists and public perceptions of telerehabilitation: An online open survey on acceptability, preferences, and needs.Brazilian journal of physical therapyObservational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMaintaining sufficient health care workforce is a global priority to achieve universal health coverage. Therefore this study addresses the availability of physiotherapists in Brazil.
objectiveTo describe secular trends of the physiotherapy workforce-to-population ratio in the Unified Health System, considering public and private sector and care level (primary, secondary, tertiary) in Brazil and its regions.
methodDescriptive exploratory quantitative study based on secondary sources. All data related to the distribution of physiotherapists between August 2007 and September 2016 regarding facilities types, location and public and private sectors was obtained from the Brazilian National Registry of Health Care Facilities. Data related to the population of Brazil was extracted from Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. The physiotherapy workforce-to-population ratio was calculated by the number of physiotherapists per 1000 population (public and private sector and care level) by ANOVA test. The distribution trends are represented on maps. Annual growth rates were estimated with Prais-Winsten linear regression models, with a significance level of 0.05, autocorrelation was checked by the Durbin-Watson test.
resultsThe physiotherapists ratio in Brazil was 0.22/1000 population in 2007 and 0.41 in 2016, showing growth of 86%, with an increasing trend of 0.5% on an annual average. The public sector had the biggest physiotherapy workforce in the country in 2007 and 2016. The primary health care had the smallest physiotherapy workforce-to-population ratio (2007: p > 0.001 and 2016: p = 0.003), even though it had the largest growth trend in annual average (0.9% p > 0.001), followed by public and private tertiary health care sectors (0.8% p > 0.001). The workforce in secondary health care was bigger in the private sector than in the public sector (0.6% p > 0.001 vs. 0.2% p = 0.004). Overall, all regions had greater growth of physiotherapy workforce-to-population ratio in public primary and tertiary health care sectors, and private secondary health care sector, mainly the Southeast, South and Central-West regions.
conclusionAlthough the physiotherapy workforce in Brazil is relatively small, there was a trend towards growth with differences among care levels, and public and private sectors. The physiotherapy workforce-to-population ratio is bigger in the private secondary health care sector, followed by public tertiary, secondary and primary health care sectors. Sub-national regions show similar trends to the national estimates, with minor variations by region.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.