Análisis descriptivo de la fisioterapia respiratoria en España

Introduction Respiratory physiotherapy (RP) consists of a combination of strategies aiming to prevent, treat and stabilize cardiorespiratory disorders in adult and pediatric patients. The aim of this study was to describe RP in Spain in the settings of clinical practice, teaching and research. Methods An on-line questionnaire was designed to obtain information about the implementation of RP in Spain in settings such clinical practice, teaching and research. The questionnaire was available on-line between October 2010-January 2011 to all professionals interested in completing it. Only responses from graduate physiotherapists living and working in Spain were accepted, at a rate of one answer per person. Results A total of 793 valid answers were obtained, revealing that 67.8% of the respondents were involved in RP in clinical practice, but that 79.3% of respondents practicing RP did so occasionally and only 50.4% had specific RP training. RP treatments were mostly implemented in hospitals (35.5%), private centers (31%) or at patients’ homes (16.9%). Overall, 16.4% of the participants were involved in RP teaching, and most of them had specific training in RP. Only 11.7% of the respondents were involved in research projects related to RP, and most of this participation was sporadic or combined with clinical or teaching tasks. Conclusions Respiratory physiotherapy is not widely implemented or practiced in Spain. Professionals providing RP interventions have an acceptable level of training but training is scarce.