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You Ask #PEDroAnswers campaign helps physiotherapists improve their skills in searching for high-quality research

Evidence-based practice enables optimal patient care through the application of high-quality research. Searching for high-quality research to answer clinical questions is a fundamental skill in the implementation of evidence-based physiotherapy. In 2021 PEDro ran a campaign called “You Ask #PEDroAnswers” to help physiotherapists around the globe improve their searching skills using the PEDro Advanced Search. The campaign asked physiotherapy clinicians and students worldwide to submit their clinical questions via social media and the PEDro website. Each month the PEDro campaign team selected a question and produced a video demonstrating the best search strategy using PEDro’s Advanced Search. The campaign also included tips on how to use the Advanced Search.

A recent editorial published in the European Rehabilitation Journal discusses the impact of the “You Ask #PEDroAnswers” campaign and the important contribution that the Société Française de Physiothérapie made to the campaign.

The Société Française de Physiothérapie participated in the “You Ask #PEDroAnswers” campaign to help promote the use of PEDro to French-speaking students and physiotherapists who may have not been familiar with the PEDro resource. Two Société Française de Physiothérapie members translated the campaign content from English to French, and one of the pair recorded the audio for the campaign videos. Throughout the campaign videos were released in English, French, Portuguese and Turkish.

The “You Ask #PEDroAnswers” campaign ran from January to December 2021 across the PEDro blog, Facebook pages, Twitter pages, and YouTube channel. Content shared on these platforms included102 posts and 30 videos demonstrating the best search strategy to answer submitted clinical questions, 60 posts and 8 videos with tips on searching and using the Advanced Search, 68 posts encouraging PEDro users to submit their clinical questions, and 6 posts summarising the campaign content. Campaign content had 5,674 page views on the PEDro blog and webpage, and 26,400 video views on YouTube and Facebook. The campaign reached 107,851 Twitter users and 29,321 Facebook users with 954 engagements on Facebook and 1,484 engagements on Twitter.

Lacking the skills to perform database searches for high-quality research is just one barrier to implementing evidence-based practice in physiotherapy. PEDro’s next campaign aims to tackle the four biggest barriers to evidence-based physiotherapy (time, language, lack of access and lack of statistical skills). The campaign #PEDroTacklesBarriers to evidence-based physiotherapy commenced in May 2022. Learn more: https://pedro.org.au/english/learn/pedrotacklesbarriers/

West CA, Guemann M, Ilhan E. You Ask #PEDroAnswers, a global social media campaign to help physiotherapists improve their searching skills to find high-quality evidence. Eur Rehab J 2022;2(1):18

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