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. 2023 Oct 6;9(10):e20736.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20736. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Barriers and facilitators of integrating physiotherapy into primary health care settings: A systematic scoping review of qualitative research

Shabnam ShahAli  1 , Saeed Shahabi  2 , Manal Etemadi  3   4 , Maryam Hedayati  5 , Barth Cornelia Anne  6   7 , Parviz Mojgani  8   9 , Masoud Behzadifar  10 , Kamran Bagheri Lankarani  2
Affiliations

Barriers and facilitators of integrating physiotherapy into primary health care settings: A systematic scoping review of qualitative research

Shabnam ShahAli et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Purpose: This scoping review investigated the barriers and facilitators to integrating physiotherapy into primary health care (PHC).

Materials and methods: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, ProQuest, and REHABDATA were searched. Two independent reviewers were involved in screening, selecting, and extracting data. Data were synthesized using thematic analysis.

Results: Of the 483 screened documents, 44 qualitative studies, primarily from high-income countries, were included. All of the studies had good methodological quality. Barriers and facilitators of integrating physiotherapy into PHC were extracted within the WHO six building blocks framework. In total, 41 items were identified as barriers to the integration process. The studies included 49 recommendations to facilitate integrating physiotherapy services into PHC.

Conclusion: Integrating physiotherapy services into PHC faces many barriers. The most commonly suggested potential barriers are poor knowledge of physicians about physiotherapy, ineffective teamwork, physiotherapists' time constraints/workload, a lack of clarity over the role and knowledge of physiotherapists, unawareness of physiotherapy users about these services, and lack of intra- and inter-professional collaborations. The most commonly suggested recommendations to facilitate the integration process include: Clarifying the role of involved professionals, strengthening teamwork, improving intra- and inter-professional collaborations, and providing comprehensive training programs for physiotherapists.

Keywords: Physiotherapy; Primary care; Primary health care; Qualitative evidence; Rehabilitation; Scoping review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flowchart.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Radar chart of the adherence of included studies to CASP items.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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