ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Rehabil. Sci.
Sec. Strengthening Rehabilitation in Health Systems
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fresc.2025.1614604
This article is part of the Research TopicHealth Systems, Rehabilitation Care and COVID-19: Challenges and OpportunitiesView all 7 articles
Global response to physiotherapy services disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and the level of preparedness for the next health emergency
Provisionally accepted
- 1World Physiotherapy, London, United Kingdom
- 2World Health Organization (Switzerland), Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic was a global health emergency that severely impacted physiotherapy and other rehabilitation services. The purpose of this study is to describe mitigation strategies developed for physiotherapy service disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and the level of integration of physiotherapy services into health emergency preparedness planning in countries/territories of World Physiotherapy member organisations. Methods: The 2022 World Physiotherapy annual membership census (AMC) included questions on health emergency preparedness planning and mitigation strategies in line with WHO recommendations. Quantitative analysis was conducted on response frequencies and disaggregated into World Physiotherapy regions and country/territory income level classifications. Results: 116 out of 125 World Physiotherapy member organisations (MOs) participated in the census. 24 % of all participating MOs reported not adopting any of the listed mitigation strategies to overcome physiotherapy service disruptions in their country/territory during the COVID-19 pandemic. 64% of participating MOs reported that physiotherapy services were not included in any health emergency preparedness component for rehabilitation in their country/territory. Discussion: There are low levels of integration of physiotherapy services into national and subnational health emergency preparedness planning. A country's income level does not appear to be a major determinant of emergency preparedness.
Keywords: Physiotherapy, Health emergency, Rehabilitation, preparedness, planning
Received: 19 Apr 2025; Accepted: 01 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kosakowski, Skelton, De Groote, Kruger and Salio. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Heidi Kosakowski, World Physiotherapy, London, United Kingdom
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.