Proportion of Joint Pain Patients Seeking Physical Therapy in Quetta City

Abstract

Physical therapy is one of the most emerging fields in the world due to its different and reliable and beneficiary mode of treatments. According to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), physical therapists are trained and licensed movement experts. They can diagnose and treat a range of injuries, disabilities, and health conditions. Physical therapists aim to improve a person’s range of movement and quality of life and prevent further injury or disability. Pakistan has a disability rate of (2.65%) with a total of around 5.035 million disabled people. Physical therapy as a profession started in 1956 at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre with a 2-year diploma, later on 4 years’ bachelors’ program was also started. In 2008, Doctor of Physical Therapy program was initiated. The representative body "Pakistan Physical Therapy Association" was also established in 2008 which then joined the World Confederation for Physical Therapy in 2011. There is plenty of work being done in the field and it has seen a rapid growth in the past decade compared to the last 50 years. Currently, there are 69 institutions in Pakistan offering various physical therapy courses. 

Awareness of physical therapy in Pakistan is one of the major issues that is currently on the top. Thus, the current study was conducted with the aim to evaluate the proportion of joint pain patients seeking physical therapy in Quetta city. This was a cross-sectional study conducted on general population of Quetta city. An interview Schedule of consisting of 3 parts (Socio-demographic, Pain history, Treatment history) and 20 questions were asked from the people who are currently having joint pain, about 347 interviewees participated in this study after which the data was analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Among the [N=347] participants (48.4%) were male and (51.6%) were female. About (12.1%) of the participants belong to the age group (59-78) and were all aware about the physical therapy. [N=105] participants belong to the postgraduate education group, and about (98%) were aware about physical therapy. [N=130] participants were currently employed and (94.6%) were aware about physical therapy. Among [N=347] of total participants (89.6%) were aware about physical therapy. When it comes to consultation of physical therapy only [N=135] (38.9%) of [N=347] participants have consulted PT as mode of treatment. Among those [N=135] participants [N=42] of them belong to age group (59-78) and only (76.2%) among them consulted physical therapist, with education of FA/FSC participants were [N=37] and among them (75.7%) consulted PT’s and (68.5%) of employed participants and participants belonging to Punjabi ethnicity (74.5%) have consulted a PT’s. education showing great significance (p-value=0.000), followed by age (p-value=0.013) and employment (p-value=0.018) when associated with Awareness. Meanwhile,  ethnicity showing great significance (p-value=0.002), followed by education (p-value=0.005), followed by age (p-value=0.029) and employment (pvalue=0.029)  when associated with Consultation of PT. in conclusion the awareness was high among study participants but consultation of PT was moderately lower than expected and to overcome that screening awareness program about Physical therapy benefits must be conducted around Balochistan especially in Quetta so that people can take advantage of such highly reliable and emerging profession around the globe.