Assessment of physical therapists and occupational therapists’ compliance to early mobility for post-surgical patients in multicenters

Introduction: Early Mobility (EM) is considered as an important element of post-surgical care which implemented after the patient go under operation within 24 to 48 hours as an average. It has been approved that early mobility has a lot of benefits such as increase circulation, reduce back pain, reduce length of stay, reduce pressure ulcers, and improve pulmonary function. Because of the importance of early mobility, this study aims to measure physical therapists and occupational therapists' compliance to early mobility for hospitalized post-surgical patients in National Guard Health Affairs (NGHA). Also, to find out the background information and difficulties regarding implementing early mobility.
Methodology: Observational, qualitative, and survey based study conducted at five medical cities in Riyadh, Jeddah, Alahsa, Dammam and Almadinah under National Guard Health Affairs in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaires were sent through e-mails to 70 therapists after obtaining the inform consent. The study includes licensed physical and occupational therapists, and excludes interns who work under supervision. The collected data is interred in EXCEL and analyzed in SPSS (version 22)
Results: Out of 70 therapists, 63 are compliant to implement early mobility, however, only 7 of them sometimes implement EM. 92%of the respondents confirmed that early mobility is proposed as a part of standard of practice. Regarding the therapists' knowledge, most of them agreed that early mobility is applied as soon as the patient is medically stable. With respect to early mobility barriers, hemodynamic instability is the most selected options of the patient barriers. For institution barriers, no written guidelines or protocols is the most chosen option. Limited staffing, and safety concern are the highest selected options of provider barriers.
Conclusion: The majority of physical therapists and occupational therapists are compliance to early mobility for post surgical patients in all medical cities under National Guard of Health Affairs.