Physiotherapists Have Accurate Expectations of Their Patients’ Future Health-Related Quality of Life after First Assessment in a Subacute Rehabilitation Setting

Abstract EN

Background.

Expectations held by health professionals and their patients are likely to affect treatment choices in subacute inpatient rehabilitation settings for older adults.

There is a scarcity of empirical evidence evaluating whether health professionals expectations of the quality of their patients’ future health states are accurate.

Methods.

A prospective longitudinal cohort investigation was implemented to examine agreement (kappa coefficients, exact agreement, limits-of-agreement, and intraclass-correlation coefficients) between physiotherapists’ (n=23) prediction of patients’ discharge health-related quality of life (reported on the EQ-5D-3L) and the actual health-related quality of life self-reported by patients (n=272) at their discharge assessment (using the EQ-5D-3L).

The mini-mental state examination was used as an indicator of patients’ cognitive ability.

Results.

Overall, 232 (85%) patients had all assessment data completed and were included in analysis.

Kappa coefficients (exact agreement) ranged between 0.37–0.57 (58%–83%) across EQ-5D-3L domains in the lower cognition group and 0.53–0.68 (81%–85%) in the better cognition group.

Conclusions.

Physiotherapists in this subacute rehabilitation setting predicted their patients’ discharge health-related quality of life with substantial accuracy.

Physiotherapists are likely able to provide their patients with sound information regarding potential recovery and health-related quality of life on discharge.

The prediction accuracy was higher among patients with better cognition than patients with poorer cognition.