title: Wheelchair skills training program for clinicians: a randomized controlled trial with occupational therapy students.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4K4, Canada.
authors.forename: Anna L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Coolen
authors.forename: R Lee
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Kirby
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Landry
authors.forename: Angela H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: MacPhee
authors.forename: Debbie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dupuis
authors.forename: Cher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Krista L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Best
authors.forename: Diane E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Mackenzie
authors.forename: Donald A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: MacLeod
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003479:Curriculum; D006801:Humans; D009048:Motor Skills; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000193:education*; D014910:Wheelchairs