Reeve, JCDunford, FLarmer, P2011-08-242011-08-2420082008Platform Presentations from NZSP Biennial Conference, Dunedin, 18-20 April 2008, as published in New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy – July 2008, vol.36(2), pp.850303-7193https://hdl.handle.net/10292/1876Emergency 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 on-call 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.New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.http://gulib.georgetown.edu/newjour/n/msg02787.htmlConference ContributionOpenAccess