Awareness of Physiotherapy among Higher Secondary Students and Perseverance among Physiotherapy Students and Professionals in Meerut - A survey

Physiotherapy is concerned with health promotion, prevention of disease or injury, treatment & rehabilitation. Physiotherapy is in existence in India since 5 decades but it has been observed in last 5–6 years that number of students pursuing physiotherapy as their career is declining as well as number of physiotherapy students and professionals continuing the profession is also declining. Thus the purpose of our study is to find out awareness of physiotherapy among higher secondary students & perseverance among students & professionals in physiotherapy.

It is a questionnaire based survey. Subjects included in the study were higher secondary students, B.P.T. final year students, interns, M.P.T. students & physiotherapy professionals. Data was collected by making personal visits to various colleges, hospitals & clinics in Meerut and questionnaire was distributed to 109 subjects (46 higher secondary students, 51 B.P.T. 4^th year students & interns and 12 M.P.T. students & physiotherapy professionals).

Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. 41% of higher secondary students had an idea about physiotherapy, 26% of higher secondary students wanted to pursue physiotherapy as their career, and 10% of BPT 4^th yr Students and interns did not want to continue with their profession while on the other hand 100% of MPT students and physiotherapy professionals wanted to continue with their profession.

Awareness of physiotherapy is still lacking among higher secondary students and perseverance in the profession among students and interns is declining.