Effects of waiting for outpatient physiotherapy services in persons with musculoskeletal disorders: a systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: This systematic review aimed to assess the scientific evidence on the effects of waiting for outpatient physiotherapy services in persons with musculoskeletal disorders. METHODS: A literature search was conducted in three databases (Medline, CINAHL, and Embase) for articles assessing the effects of waiting for outpatient physiotherapy services in persons with musculoskeletal disorders. Clinical and health system outcomes were analyzed. RESULTS: Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria for this review. The studies varied in designs, settings, and populations. The definition of waiting also varied between studies. The studies were of low to high methodological quality. Waiting for outpatient physiotherapy services was shown to have mixed results on clinical and health system outcomes. Results from included studies suggest the possible detrimental effects of waiting on pain, disability, quality of life, and psychological symptoms in persons with musculoskeletal disorders. There was also evidence of higher healthcare utilization and costs for patients who wait longer before physiotherapy services. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides mixed evidence that suggest potential detrimental effects on the health of individuals with MSDs and at the health system level. Further high-quality studies are needed, such as longitudinal studies specifically addressing the effects of waiting due to lack of access to physiotherapy services.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONThe findings from this review suggest potential detrimental effects on health outcomes when patients wait longer before receiving physiotherapy services.The findings also suggest higher healthcare utilization and costs for patients with longer wait times compared to those who receive physiotherapy services more rapidly.This review suggests the need to assess and implement strategies and policies to ensure timely access to physiotherapy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.050 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.009 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".