The Perceived Importance of Clinical Observation Skills for Pediatric Therapists

Objectives: Clinical observation is a crucial component in pediatric rehabilitation, allowing therapists to assess a child’s abilities, monitor progress, and adjust interventions accordingly. Despite its significance, research on how clinical observation is used across different pediatric therapy settings remains limited. This quantitative study investigated the association between pediatric therapy practice settings, the perceived importance of clinical observation skills, and the frequency of clinical observation skill utilization.
Methods: An anonymous web-based survey was utilized to collect data relevant to the research questions. The chi-square test for independence was used to analyze the data.
Results: 398 of the 409 participants met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. An overwhelming majority of the participants (80.9%) perceived clinical observation skills as “important” or “very important.” After statistical analysis of the data, it was found that there was a statistically significant association between setting and the perceived importance of clinical observation skills. Approximately 49% of participants reported daily use of clinical observation skills in pediatric therapy, followed by weekly (34.6%), monthly (11.6%), rarely (4.5%), and never (0.3%).
Conclusions: Overall, setting was statistically associated with the perceived importance of clinical observation skills.

Child; rehabilitation; judgment

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