Client Education: Communicative Interaction between Physiotherapists and Clients with Subacute Low Back Pain in Private Practice

Abstract

Purpose: To explore, through focus-group interviews, client education provided by physiotherapists in private practice who treat injured workers with subacute low back pain (SA-LBP). Methods: Six focus-group interviews were held in the fall of 2006 to explore treatment practices of physiotherapists for this population. Each of the 44 physiotherapists who volunteered attended one of six regional sessions. Results: Three overarching themes emerged: the critical importance of education; education: a multidimensional concept; and the physiotherapist–client relationship. In this study, we found that education provides continuity by tying together the separate tasks occurring during one treatment session. Our participants said that time is of the essence in private practice and described how they provide education seamlessly, making this type of delivery efficient. Conclusions: Education is a highly valued aspect of practice for physiotherapists. Verbal, tactile, and visual information obtained from the client as assessment and treatment progress is explored, expanded, and contextualized in conversation with the client. In a communicative, interactive process, client fears, other contextual information, and physiotherapist information about procedures and techniques, exercises, and anatomy are collaboratively interrelated.