Emergency on-call duties have been highlighted as key stress
factors in newly qualified physiotherapists and job performance
may be altered as a result. The purpose of this study was to
determine what differences exist between novice and expert
physiotherapists within the emergency on-call environment.
A purpose-designed postal questionnaire was administered to
emergency on-call providers in New Zealand. The questionnaire
investigated participant’s attitudes towards emergency on-call
service provision and presented a vignette-based clinical scenario.
A response rate of 78.8 % (n = 56) was achieved. Significant
differences between novices and experts were determined in
scores for confidence (p = .0001), stress (p = .001) and support
required (p = .001). Factors which particularly influenced both
novice and expert stress levels when working as emergency oncall
physiotherapists emerged as being working in isolation and
working with a higher complexity of patients. A relationship was
determined between confidence, level of support required and
amount of stress felt (p = .001). Differences were demonstrated
between novice and expert physiotherapists in their answers to
a clinical case scenario particularly in the areas of prioritisation,
problem definition and in the interpretation of analysed results.
A need for novices to gain the type of experience which has the
facility for independent problem solving and guided reflection was determined; the use of vignette based case studies may be one
method which could be further exploited to meet these needs.
