Physiotherapy for tennis elbow: a survey of knowledge and practice within the UK and Ireland.

Background/aims The purpose of the survey was to investigate the current state of knowledge and practice regarding tennis elbow within a physiotherapy population. A secondary purpose was to explore attitudes towards emerging electrotherapeutic technologies in the treatment of tennis elbow and to ascertain if culturally, within physiotherapy, there could be bias against such technologies because of a historic lack of high-quality evidence surrounding them. Methods The survey was undertaken entirely online using an e-mail cascade and 253 responses were gained. Results Overall, respondents overestimated the strength of evidence supporting a list of common treatment modalities. Where electrotherapeutic modalities were concerned, however, the vast majority of the sample thought the evidence was poor. Where diagnosis and management were concerned the majority of respondents appeared to practice in an evidence-based fashion. conclusions Perhaps the most important finding of the study is that a third of respondents thought they might be biased against new electrotherapeutic technologies, even if they were using them within a research setting. The implications of this are discussed in the context of how factors such as communication and therapist affects may change treatment outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]