Entry-To-Practice Competency Expectations for Health Justice in Physiotherapy Curricula: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Canadian physiotherapists are expected to demonstrate essential competencies upon entry-to-practice including health justice competencies. However, as an emerging topic among Canadian physiotherapy programs, physiotherapy curricula may lack explicit content to develop skills related to health justice. This scoping review examined existing entry-level physiotherapy competencies related to health justice in Canada and countries other than Canada, the existing entry-level competencies for physiotherapy related to health justice in countries other than Canada; and evaluated how entry-level competencies related to health justice in Canadian physiotherapy practice compared to those of other countries. Four databases (MEDLINE, Emcare, Embase, and CINHL) and the grey literature were searched. Four thousand three hundred seventy-seven relevant abstracts and 71 grey literature sources were identified respectively. One hundred seven sources underwent full text review with 12 database articles and 13 grey literature sources selected for data extraction. None of the included articles specifically articulated one or more competencies for health justice; instead competencies in content areas relevant to health justice were identified. During the data extraction phase four themes were identified: (1) Lack of specificity, clarity, and consistency which was further separated into two subthemes (a) lack of consistency and clarity of definitions and concepts (b) lack of an assessment tool; (2) Author identification; (3) Curriculum development; (4) Experiential learning. Limitations include restricting the search to English language only, and grey literature limited to specific PDFs and websites. The data collected in this scoping review demonstrates gaps in the integration of health justice in Canadian and international entry-level physiotherapy curricula.