ArticleJournal of multidisciplinary healthcare2025
Enhancing Clinical Confidence: Effects of Medical Screening and Differential Diagnosis Training for Low Back Pain.
Article in Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessment of differential diagnostic skills of physiotherapists related to the cervical spine - approaches to improving effectiveness: observational, cross-sectional study.BMC medical education · 2025Observational
- Confidence in Medical Device Calibration Knowledge and Skills Among Healthcare Professionals in Ghana: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.Health services insights · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: Direct access to physical therapy (PT) requires PTs to act as primary care providers, making differential diagnosis a critical component of patient assessment. We investigated how participation in postgraduate training in differential diagnosis and medical screening influences PTs' confidence, self-efficacy, attitudes and beliefs about treating patients with low back pain (LBP). Patients and Methods: This prospective, two-arm study involved 49 PTs in an intervention group and 70 in a control group. The intervention included 40-hours of training on medical screening and differential diagnosis, focusing on red flags, clinical reasoning and referral pathways, while the control group received no intervention. Clinical confidence, self-efficacy, attitudes and beliefs were measured before, immediately after, and 6-months after training. Outcomes included the Primary Care Confidence Scale (PCCS), which assesses confidence in primary care practice, detection of serious pathology, and medical screening; the Physiotherapy Self-Efficacy (PSE) questionnaire, evaluating clinical self-efficacy in assessing and treating patients with LBP; and the Attitudes to Back Pain Scale for Musculoskeletal Practitioners (ABS-mp), which measures clinicians' attitudes and beliefs about LBP. Results: The intervention group showed significant immediate improvements in PCCS scores (40.26 ± 5.23 to 45.24 ± 4.20, Conclusion: This study highlights the positive impact of training in medical screening and differential diagnosis on reducing concerns and increasing clinical confidence and self-efficacy.
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