Wheelchair service provision education in academia

Abstract

BackgroundAn estimated 70 million people with disabilities need wheelchairs. To address this global crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed an eight-step wheelchair service provision model to ensure service quality regardless of resource setting. The International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP) aims to facilitate the integration of the WHO eight-step model into professional rehabilitation programmes.ObjectiveTo develop an enhanced understanding of the current wheelchair service provision education provided in professional rehabilitation programmes worldwide.MethodsIn a cross-sectional design, an online survey was distributed to ISWP contacts of educational institutions. Quantitative responses were analysed through summary statistics and qualitative answers were analysed by content analyses. When relevant, educational institutions were stratified into resource settings.ResultsSeventy-two representatives of educational institutions in 21 countries completed the survey. Wheelchair content was taught in 79% of represented institutions, of which 75% of respondents reported using original course material, 10% of respondents used WHO Wheelchair Service Training Packages and 15% of respondents used other available resources. The majority of educational institutions teaching with their own wheelchair-related course material taught ≤ 20 hours. Fourteen of the 15 respondents without wheelchair education, expressed an interest in integrating wheelchair education into their academic curricula.ConclusionThe majority of the educational institutions teach wheelchair education; however, there is great variability in what and how it is taught and evaluated. The results demonstrate the need for more in-depth investigation regarding the integration process of wheelchair education in educational institutions, with the ultimate goal of improving wheelchair service provision worldwide.

Wheelchair user’s voice: a pilot study in Indonesia

“…For example, the study done by Hosseini et al obtained an average score of 84% in the wheelchair skills test [29]. The average total score in the study by Kirby et al [31] on the questionnaire version was 84.8%. In the study done by Toro et al [17] in Indonesia, the participants who received wheelchair services with the WHO 8-Steps had scores of 70.6% for adults and 77.7% for adults and proxy.…”

“…Even though there is an overall positive impact in following the WHO guidelines for wheelchair provision [17], it is necessary to provide education more about mobility skills to service providers so that they can provide training about more mobility skills to wheelchair users. This should, in fact, be considered not only in the WHO WSTP packages but also in educational programs as mentioned by Fung et al [31] Besides, educational and training programs should include information not only about mobility and skills, but also about maintenance and repairs to improve wheelchair provision and services around the world.…”

Development of a toolkit for educators of the wheelchair service provision process: the Seating and Mobility Academic Resource Toolkit (SMART)

“…The methods in the Observe Phase of the PAR approach involved a secondary data analysis of existing data [21] (see Table 1). These data were from a survey study and a semi-structured interview study conducted to develop an enhanced understanding of the current wheelchair service provision education provided in professional rehabilitation programs worldwide [14,18]. The secondary data analysis plan involved a deductive qualitative approach whereby a set of reflective questions were used to conduct an in-depth analysis of the barriers to integration of wheelchair content into curricula and how these barriers could be overcome through the use of an online SMART using facilitators identified from the existing data as well as new strategies.…”

“…This method aligns with both the Wheelchair Service Provider Certification process offered by the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP) [12], as well as evolving health care professional education standards [13]. As various approaches to education and training, as well as evaluation of competency are studied and evolve, the variability in the content and curricula that is taught, the methods and pedagogic approaches used to teach the material, and how knowledge and level of competency is evaluated has become apparent [10,[14][15][16][17].…”

“…Educators in university rehabilitation programs have identified issues at three of the five states of the integration process: advocacy (e.g., limited faculty interest or resistance to integration of wheelchair content), planning (e.g., lack of awareness of resources), and course development and delivery (e.g., lack of time, lack of expertise) [18]. Even in the remaining two states of integration, i.e., first-time implementation and improvement, both the value of and the need for resources have been identified as a means of overcoming these challenges [14,18]. Recognizing the variety of challenges that exist, yet also the variety of expertise and resources that are available globally, the objective of this study, conducted by the ISWP, was to develop a Seating and Mobility Academic Resource Toolkit (SMART) [19].…”