Telehealth Walking Self-Management for Individuals With Amputation: A Qualitative Study of Therapist Perspectives on Adoption.

Objective: The aim of this study was to understand therapist-identified factors influencing clinical adoption of a telehealth walking self-management intervention for individuals with lower limb amputation.

Methods: Semi-structured focus groups were completed with actively practicing physical and occupational therapists treating populations that are medically complex. A qualitative explorative design was employed with conventional content analysis and iterative independent parallel coding using 2 analysts. Themes and subthemes were generated with a consensus building process identifying patterns and collapsing codes to represent participant perspectives.

Results: Thematic saturation was met after 5 focus groups (24 therapists). Therapists were on average 34 years old and predominantly female (n = 19; 79%) physical therapists (n = 17; 71%). Three primary facilitator and barrier themes were identified for intervention adoption: system, therapist, and person. System considerations included telehealth support and interprofessional care coordination. Therapist facilitators included self-management programming that overlapped with standard of care and personalization methods. However, limited behavioral theory training was a therapist level barrier. Finally, person factors such as patient activation could influence both positively and negatively. Person facilitators included social support and barriers included the complex health condition.

Conclusion: System, therapist, and person facilitators and barriers must be considered to maximize the adoption of similar telehealth walking self-management interventions and prior to larger scale implementation of the current intervention for individuals with lower limb amputation.

Impact: A telehealth walking self-management intervention has potential impact for individuals with lower limb amputation and must be considered in terms of optimizing system, therapist, and person level facilitators and barriers to implementation.