Manual wheelchair-skills courses (“bootcamps”) for wheelchair service providers: an observational study on learners’ satisfaction and perceived effectiveness

Our primary objective was to assess wheelchair service providers’ opinions on manual wheelchair-skills courses (“bootcamps”). Our secondary objective was to test the hypothesis that these courses enhance the learners’ self-reported capacity and confidence. This was an observational study that took place in rehabilitation and conference centers on 407 wheelchair service providers each of whom took part in one of 26 practical workshops on manual wheelchair skills at least 1 day in duration. Post-course, all participants completed a Course Evaluation Form with ordinal (1–5), categorical, and free-response questions. A subset of 103 participants also completed a modified Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire (WST-Q) of “capacity” and “confidence”. The percentages of participants who answered 5 (“extremely so”) to the questions “useful?”, “relevant?”, “well-tolerated?”, “understandable?”, and “enjoyable?” were 94.1, 90.4, 92.6, 95.6, and 97.3%. The median for the Overall Satisfaction Score (OSS) (1–5) of the 26 bootcamps was 4.96. Most participants (87.1%) considered the course “just right” in duration, and (100%) stated that they would recommend the Course to others. There were numerous qualitative comments about the course content, as well as what participants found most and least useful. Over half of the WST-Q respondents reported improvements in capacity and confidence in 26 (90.0%) and 25 (86.2%) of individual skills. Although there is room for improvement, wheelchair service providers were generally positive about in-person courses, and the courses enhance wheelchair-skills capacity and confidence. Wheelchair service providers are generally positive about in-person practical courses.Such courses enhance the perceived wheelchair-skills capacity and confidence of participants. Wheelchair service providers are generally positive about in-person practical courses. Such courses enhance the perceived wheelchair-skills capacity and confidence of participants.