Prevalence of Fatigue Among Physiotherapy Students - A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Fatigue is expressed in related concepts such as 'overwhelmingly tired', 'exhausted', 'weakness', 'lassitude', 'feeble lethargy', 'lack of energy', 'wrung out' and 'mentally tired'. Persistent fatigue can cause a lack of mental clarity, difficulty in concentrating and in some cases it cause memory loss. It is the body's way of signalling need for rest and sleep. Physiotherapy being one of the flourishing courses in India as well as globally, it is both physically and mentally demanding when compared to many other medical and paramedical courses. Typical Physiotherapy practices involve repeated lifting, bending, twisting, reaching, and performing manual therapy. Thus, the current study aims at focussing on the fatigue severity rate among physiotherapy students. The study was conducted in April 2021 to Dec 2022, to know the prevalence of fatigue among physiotherapy students. Eight hundred students were recruited into the study based on the selected inclusion and exclusion criteria. The demographic data was collected and were asked to complete the visual analogue fatigue severity scale. The data was entered into the statistical package for social sciences software. To examine the baseline characteristics of the subjects, we analyzed the frequency and descriptive statistics and then it was subjected for finding of normality. Inferential analysis was carried out by using Chi- Square test for the outcomes of VAS- F. The result of the present study showed that the demographic data were not statistically significant (p>0.05). Gender and batch were not significant (p>0.05). The prevalence of fatigue was; mild 27.3%, moderate 34.2% and severe 37.9%. Keywords: Fatigue, Physiotherapist, Physical inactivity, Physical Therapy