Canada (excluding Quebec) is the only country of 17 requiring a clinical competency examination for licensure of domestic physical therapy graduates¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesis r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2026: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Of 17 countries with well-developed regulation systems, only Canada (excluding Quebec) required both a clinical and written competency exam after graduation; two countries (USA, UAE) required only a written exam; the remaining 14 required no additional competency examination. → Bobos Pavlos 2021

Evidence¶

Bobos Pavlos 2021¶

Bobos Pavlos, Pouliopoulou Dimitra V., Harriss Alexandra, Sadi Jackie, Rushton Alison, MacDermid Joy C. (2021). A systematic review and meta-analysis of measurement properties of objective structured clinical examinations used in physical therapy licensure and a structured review of licensure practices in countries with well-developed regulation systems. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255696

q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2

Structured review of grey literature from regulatory bodies and associations in 17 countries, synthesized descriptively. The review found Canada (excluding Quebec) "was the only country that required both a clinical and written competency exam" while the USA and UAE required only a written exam.

"From the 17 included countries, Canada (excluding Quebec) was the only country that required both a clinical and written competency exam following graduation from an accredited PT program. Two countries (USA, UAE) required a written competency exam."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Home-educated physical therapy candidates pass licensure examinations at higher rates than international-educated candidates in Canada and the USA — related
• OSCE validity correlations with other measures range from very weak to strong, suggesting OSCEs resemble narrow course examinations more than broad clinical practice — related
• OSCEs used with physical therapy students show weak internal consistency, with a pooled Cronbach's alpha of 0.55 below the acceptable range — related
• Practising physical therapists outperformed physical therapy students on a single-station simulated OSCE, supporting known-groups construct validity — related
• Standardised patient performance shows almost perfect inter-rater (kappa 0.84) and substantial intra-rater (kappa 0.75) agreement — related
• Each OSCE station score correlates strongly with the total OSCE score, with a pooled Pearson correlation of 0.71 — related
• Correlations between different OSCE station scores are weak, with a pooled Pearson correlation of 0.27 — related
• Inter-assessor agreement on OSCE scores is substantial, with a pooled intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.77 — related