Physiotherapists’ accounts of fibromyalgia: role-uncertainty and professional shortcomings

Purpose: This article examines accounts of fibromyalgia provided by physiotherapists. This qualitative study asks how physiotherapists define and understand fibromyalgia, what professional resources are available to them for treating patients, and where physiotherapists can turn when facing the scarcity of professional resources. Method: The data were collected by means of semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews, conducted with 20 practicing physiotherapists. The physiotherapists were recruited using a purposive-sampling strategy and had extensive experience treating fibromyalgia patients (mean value: 6.5 years). The authors analyzed the interviews in accordance with the methods of thematic analysis. Results: The study findings expose two overarching themes: (a) fibromyalgia as an ambiguous and uncertain diagnosis: physiotherapists devalue the diagnosis, referring to it as a syndrome rooted on psychological factors; (b) role ambiguity and creativity in physiotherapy treatment: by questioning their role, physiotherapists end up focusing on illness management and developing creative treatments. Conclusions: The study concludes that treating fibromyalgia patients challenges physiotherapists, mainly because of professional shortcomings. The findings highlight the necessity to train physiotherapists to respond to the needs of their patients with greater competence and less ambivalence.Implications for rehabilitationHealth providers need to acknowledge the difficulty physiotherapists are facing when providing treatment to fibromyalgia patients.Physiotherapists treating fibromyalgia should undergo special training to reduce their uncertainty and role ambiguity.Health providers should improve communication between physiotherapists and the General Practitioners referring fibromyalgia patients, to enable them to set shared evidence-based treatment goals. Health providers need to acknowledge the difficulty physiotherapists are facing when providing treatment to fibromyalgia patients. Physiotherapists treating fibromyalgia should undergo special training to reduce their uncertainty and role ambiguity. Health providers should improve communication between physiotherapists and the General Practitioners referring fibromyalgia patients, to enable them to set shared evidence-based treatment goals.

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PID https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876.v1
PID https://www.doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2019.1632939
PID https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876
URL http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876.v1
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876.v1
URL https://figshare.com/articles/Physiotherapists_accounts_of_fibromyalgia_role-uncertainty_and_professional_shortcomings/8378876
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2019.1632939
URL http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8378876
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Access Right Open Access
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Author Roitenberg, Neta
Author Avihu Shoshana
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Collected From Datacite; figshare
Hosted By figshare
Publication Date 2019-06-30
Publisher Taylor & Francis
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Language UNKNOWN
Resource Type Dataset
keyword FOS: Sociology
keyword FOS: Biological sciences
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Source https://science-innovation-policy.openaire.eu/search/dataset?datasetId=dedup_wf_001::66b87daa9dde842712aa2a9dbe925212
Author jsonws_user
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Last Updated 16 December 2020, 08:25 (CET)
Created 16 December 2020, 08:25 (CET)