Abstract

HERNANDEZ-SANCHEZ, Jacqueline; LOZANO-GARCIA, Leidy Johanna  and  MURILLO-VARELA, Yurley Andrea. Experiences of health education in physical therapy. Univ. Salud [online]. 2016, vol.18, n.3, pp.576-585. ISSN 0124-7107.  https://doi.org/10.22267/rus.161803.63.

Introduction: Health education is a fundamental tool in public health, where the physiotherapists play an important role by either promoting behaviors that protect the health or preventing those that put it at risk. Objective:To identify the characteristics of experiences of HE that physiotherapists carry out worldwide. Materials and methods:A descriptive study was performed by using documentary review of experiences reported in articles published from 1995 to 2014. Results:30 experiences of physiotherapists as health educators were identified, which were reported in scientific papers. The areas of application were musculoskeletal (20; 69%) and physical activity or exercise (6; 20.6%). There are weaknesses in the theoretical foundations; in addition, traditional methodological strategies such as counseling (24.2%), individual education (21.2%) and the combination of counseling with educational material (9.1%) are used. Printed materials are also widely used. Evaluations carried out are mainly quantitative. Conclusions: There are few scientific publications of experiences about Health education in physiotherapy. Those reported in this article are mainly developed in the muscle-skeletal area. However, there is not a clear theoretical foundation; there is confusion and an indiscriminate use of the term Health education and health promotion. There are normative and training challenges for physiotherapists as health educators; as well as problems to be solved in future research.

Keywords : Health education; physiotherapy; lifestyles; health promotion.

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