Allied Health Professionals (AHP) are integrated members of the multidisciplinary Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) care team and include physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. The objective of this survey study is to determine factors impacting AHPs interest and confidence treating pediatric patients with FND in the United States. An 11-question survey was developed by pediatric AHPs at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and distributed over an 8-month period via pediatric interhospital listserv; as well as American Occupational Therapy Association and American Physical Therapy Association community boards. Respondents were required to be licensed AHPs working in a pediatric setting. In total, 239 respondents from 32 hospitals across 18 states participated in this study. Respondents were 110 physical therapists, 92 occupational therapists and 37 speech therapists. For AHPs with 0-5 years clinical experience, 40% reported to be neutral to extremely not interested in FND, with 49.5% reporting neutral to extremely not confident treating FND. For AHPs with 6+ years of clinical experience, 48.6% reported neutral to extremely not interested in FND and 45.8% reported neutral to extremely not confident in treating FND. AHPs with more general clinical experience report higher levels of confidence and lower levels of interest treating pediatric FND compared to those earlier in their career, regardless of AHP type. Non-clinical exposure did not have a significant impact on confidence treating FND. Though, experiential exposure was observed to correlate with highest levels of confidence at 75.8%, regardless of years of experience.
Key words: Functional neurological disorder, Occupational therapy, Pediatric, Speech therapy
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