Effects of Staff Training in Natural Mobility: A Long-term Follow-up.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a half-day course in Natural Mobility, which is an interactive instruction method in patient-transfer. A physiotherapist communicates her tacit knowledge to caregivers, who learn how to understand and improve verbal and non-verbal communication to get patients move themselves. Two hundred and twelve caregivers responded to three questionnaires before the course and 4-5 months and one year after the course respectively. The questions ad dressed the number of transfer methods the staff used, whether they changed their use of methods, how the strain of work was affected, and how satisfied they were with their way of assisting patient-transfer. The results showed that sixty-eight percent had changed their use of methods and the change remained one year after the course. The strain experienced was significantly reduced 4-5 months after the course and this reduction was retained one year later. Work satisfaction showed a significant increase; which was retained one year after the course. The changes in working habits were few, but retained, and comments indicated that the treatment of the patients had changed. Natural Mobility training appears to be a useful complement to the patient-transfer methods used today, by involving physiotherapist's tacit knowledge in the training of health care staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]