Attitude of Physiotherapy Students towards Privacy and Confidentiality of Patient: A Survey Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55487/ijcih.v3i1.112Keywords:
Privacy, Confidentiality, Questionnaire, Survey, PhysiotherapyAbstract
Maintaining confidentiality and understanding patients’ rights about their information are crucial in therapeutic
practice. A patient and doctor relationship must be built on trust for it to remain strong. Therefore, the purpose of
this study is to develop a valid and reliable questionnaire to evaluate medical students’ knowledge and attitudes
about the concepts of confidentiality and disclosure of patient information and to assess knowledge and attitude of
physiotherapy students regarding privacy and confidentiality of patient. A questionnaire containing of 24 questions
with the total score of 105 to assess knowledge and attitude towards patient privacy and confidentiality was
created through extensive literature review. The questionnaire was then sent to nine experts and its content
validity index (CVI) was calculated. A final draft of 21 questions was then formulated with Scale level-CVI
(S-CVI) of 0.97 by average method and 0.71 by universal agreement method. All 21 questions had an item
level CVI (I-CVI) of 0.89 to 1. The questionnaire was then distributed randomly to 10 participants for checking
internal consistency which was later calculated to be 0.965. Finally, the questionnaire was distributed to 548
physiotherapy students (UG and PG) through online google form. 321 students responded to the questionnaire
with response rate of 58.87%. From the responses, mean and standard deviation was calculated. The mean ±
S.D of PG students was 101.94 ± 5.351, Interns 98.14±11.42, 4th Year (90.43±17.29), 3rd Year (86.04±15.38),
2nd Year (84.82±15.15) and 1st Year was (87.58±14.34) respectively. There was no any significant difference
between the attitude of male and female students. Both UG and PG were fairly aware about patient privacy and
confidentiality. UG students should be introduced to the trainings and bed side teaching, employing real-world
case scenarios which will help them in putting the ethical concepts into practice.
