Wheelchair skills training program for clinicians: a randomized controlled trial with occupational therapy students.
OBJECTIVE
To test the hypothesis that a brief formalized period of wheelchair skills training, added to the standard curriculum, results in significantly greater overall improvements in wheelchair skills than a standard undergraduate occupational therapy (OT) curriculum alone.


METHODS
Rehabilitation center.


METHODS
Randomized controlled trial.


METHODS
Eighty-two students in a university undergraduate OT program.


METHODS
All students received the standard university curriculum. The 22 second-year students, randomly allocated to the Wheelchair Skills Training Program (WSTP) group, were also trained (on a single occasion each, in groups of 1-3 at a time) on the 50 skills that make up the WSTP. The mean +/- standard deviation (SD) training time was 121.2+/-33.5 minutes per group.


METHODS
Total percentage score on the Wheelchair Skills Test (WST), Version 2.4.


RESULTS
From before to after intervention, second-year students in the WSTP group increased their mean percentage WST scores +/- SD from 64.8%+/-9.0% to 81.0%+/-5.2%, a 25% improvement (P<.001). Over a comparable period, the 18 students in the second-year control group increased from 66.0%+/-8.0% to 72.4%+/-7.1%, a 9.7% improvement (P=.015). The WSTP group improved to a significantly greater extent (P=.005). For a subset of 8 students in the WSTP group who were retested 9 to 12 months later, the mean WST score was 79.7%+/-4.1%, not significantly less than their WST 2 scores (P=.29). The mean WST score for the 42 students in the fourth-year control group was 73.9%+/-4.1%, significantly lower than the mean postintervention WST score of the second-year students in the WSTP group (P< .0001) and not different from the second-year control group (P=.58).


CONCLUSIONS
The WSTP is an effective way to improve the wheelchair-skills performance of OT students. This has implications for the education of all rehabilitation clinicians.
Coolen
Anna L
AL
School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4K4, Canada.
Kirby
R Lee
RL
Landry
Jennifer
J
MacPhee
Angela H
AH
Dupuis
Debbie
D
Smith
Cher
C
Best
Krista L
KL
Mackenzie
Diane E
DE
MacLeod
Donald A
DA
D000328:Adult; D003479:Curriculum; D006801:Humans; D009048:Motor Skills; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000193:education*; D014910:Wheelchairs