Lack of time is the most common barrier to evidence-based physiotherapy. Many factors contribute to this, including a high workload, competing priorities, efficiency in all 5 steps of evidence-based physiotherapy (Ask, Acquire, Appraise, Apply, Assess), lacking resources, lacking confidence, and being overwhelmed by the amount of evidence and the process of changing practice.

Ten clinicians share some strategies they use to tackle the barrier of lack of time in the #PEDroTacklesBarriers to evidence-based physiotherapy campaign.

Nosipho Zumana Mtotoba
Mafikeng Provincial Hospital, South Africa

Nosipho emphasises quality over quantity. She says that “everybody in life does not have time, but we try to accommodate and do what we can within the time that we are given.”

Kate Scrivener
Concentric Rehabilitation Centre, Australia

A key strategy to tackle the time barrier suggested by Kate is to use synthesised research. Kate says “guidelines provide the most important evidence for clinical practice” and that “systematic reviews have the potential to be strong enough to change what we do in clinical practice.”

Nicholas Draheim
Movement Solutions, Australia

Nick suggests making evidence part of your staff meetings by “identifying areas that the team need to develop knowledge and skills in and task staff with bringing relevant high-quality clinical research to the meeting”.

Michele Marelli
Università degli Studi del Molise, Italy

Michele dedicates time to reading new articles. He says that “specialising in specific fields in musculoskeletal care” has also helped him tackle the time barrier.

Daniel Treacy
South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, Australia

Daniel suggests a journal club that is focused on a practice or question over a period of time will facilitate implementation. Daniel emphasises “that, in addition to reading relevant research, journal clubs should include planning and testing how the new practices are implemented in the clinic’s busy work schedule.”

Nehal Shah
Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, India

Being in a routine of reading articles has made Nehal more efficient. Every morning she puts an article in her pocket so that it is on hand when she has some spare time.

Govinda Nepal
Kathmandu University Hospital, Nepal

Like many physiotherapists, Govinda has a long commute to work. He uses this travel time to read high-quality research.

Yvette Black
Bloomfield Hospital, Orange Health Service, Australia

A mentor once said to Yvette “it’s not that you don’t have time, you need to reframe it and make time.” She suggests using your diary to make considering evidence a normal part of your routine.

Sean Kaplan
Home visiting physiotherapist, South Africa

Sean seeks to “know what you don’t know.” You can collaborate with colleagues or friends to take action on this using relevant evidence.

Laura Crowe-Owen
Therapy for Life, Australia

Laura provides some great tips for the strategic use of social media. Suggestions include “following researchers who produce meaningful articles, rather than the loudest person in the room, and always read the articles.”

More strategies to tackle the barrier of time will be released in July 2022.

Please join us in the ‘PEDroTacklesBarriers to evidence-based physiotherapy’ campaign to help tackle the biggest barriers to evidence-based physiotherapy. You can follow the campaign via the PEDro website, blog, Twitter or Facebook.