2023 Volume 3 Issue 2 Pages 2_23-2_33
Purpose: This survey was conducted to clarify the causes of difficulty in gait analysis by physical therapists (PTs), particularly by addressing the observation process. Methods: Questionnaire respondents were 3,840 PTs employed at 192 randomly selected facilities. The overall process of gait analysis consists of four parts: Observation, Hypothesis formation, Functional testing, and Verification. The questionnaire contents consisted of 1 question about the difficulty of the overall gait analysis process and 12 questions specifically about the difficulty of the observation process. Logistic regression analysis was used for statistical analyses. The target variable was the general difficulty of the overall gait analysis process reported by two groups: one with difficulty and one without difficulty. The explanatory variables were responses about difficulties of the observation process. Results: More than 70% of the PTs had difficulty with questions about the overall gait analysis process. As a result of logistic regression analysis, observation accuracy was extracted as a factor related to the difficulty of the overall gait analysis process. Conclusion: Results suggest that the difficulty of PT gait analysis is related to the factor of observation accuracy.
