Active Methods in Physical Therapy: Intereliability Study of the Osce Method

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to report the experience with Objective Structured Clinical Examination in a Physiotherapy undergraduate course and demonstrate the interrater reliability of the developed checklists. The study sample consisted of twenty-nine students in the seventh semester of the Physiotherapy course at the Rio Grande do Norte Federal University Trairi Health Sciences School. Four different stations, each simulating a clinical case of the locomotor system were set up and a checklist contained options to answer “yes”, “no” or “insufficient” to assess the physiotherapeutic care, with two teachers at each station. Four students were evaluated simultaneously and had 7 minutes at each station. There was a significant difference in the distribution of grades between stations 1 and 2 (p < 0.001), and 1 and 3 (p = 0.001). An excellent level of reliability was found at station 1 (ICC = 0.89), 2 (ICC=0.99) and 3 (ICC = 0.99), whereas at station 4 a this level was satisfactory (ICC = 0.73). Thus, these findings indicate that OSCE in physical therapy practice presents satisfactory to excellent interrater reliability results regardless of the teaching-learning profile and the adopted evaluation, and may be a useful method for professional health care training.

Learning; Educational Measurement; Physiotherapy; Medical Education