Date of Award

3-18-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

School Name

College of Health Professions

Department

Health Professions

Major Advisor

Sara Mahoney, PhD, FACSM

Second Advisor

Kim Hawkins, PhD, APRN, FNP-C

Third Advisor

Rachele Vogelpohl, PhD, ATC

Abstract

Context: Telehealth in athletic training education has limited research to support use and integration into practice. To determine if telehealth is an effective educational technique for athletic training students, it is necessary to compare the use of telehealth encounters with current educational techniques, such as standardized patient (SP) encounters. Objective: To determine if telehealth encounters using a SP are as effective at improving athletic training student knowledge and confidence as in-person encounters. Design: Pretest/Posttest, Non-randomized controlled trial. Setting: One undergraduate and one graduate athletic training program. Participants: Nine athletic training students (n=4 in treatment group, n=5 in control group). Interventions: All participants completed a SP encounter of a lower extremity evaluation. The participants in the control group completed the encounter in-person, with the treatment group completed a telehealth encounter virtually using Zoom technology. Prior to the encounters all participants completed a survey including a knowledge assessment of the specific case scenario and confidence rating scale about assessing a patient. The same survey was then completed after the formal debrief following both the treatment and control encounters. Main Outcome Measures: Knowledge assessment quiz and confidence rating scale. Results: Two separate repeated measures ANOVAs revealed a statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest composite scores for both knowledge and confidence respectively (F = 14.01, p = 0.007, = 0.667; F = 61.86, p < 0.001, = 0.898). When controlling for the pretest scores, there was no significant difference found between treatment and control groups for either knowledge or confidence (F = 0.10, p = 0.765, = 0.014; F = 0.09, p = 0.771, = 0.013). Conclusions: Telehealth encounters demonstrated similar increases in confidence and knowledge to in-person encounters.

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