“A feeling of being part of the future”: a qualitative study on physical therapists’ experiences of delivering digital first-line treatment for hip and knee osteoarthritis

Digital options for osteoarthritis (OA) treatment are increasingly available with high patient satisfaction and acceptability. Little is, however, known about physical therapists’ (PT) perception of this treatment modality. To investigate PT’s experience of delivering digital treatment for hip and knee OA using a smart-phone application. Nine PTs (mean age 36 years, women <i>n</i> = 5) with 3–24 months experience of delivering digital OA treatment were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using content analysis. Four main categories arose; 1) A feeling of being part of the future, 2) Making an osteoarthritis diagnosis in a digital setting, 3) Facilitators and barriers of digital OA management and 4) Where to go from here? PTs were in general positive for digital treatment delivery but felt that a lack of visual assessments and physical examinations to enhance exercise evaluations and diagnosis accuracy was sometimes a disadvantage. Digital treatment delivery was in general perceived as a time-efficient way of providing high-quality care that may increase patient motivation and adherence without violating the therapeutic alliance. Future implementations of digital OA treatment programs should consider the possibility of including real-time video calls for visual assessment.