Comparative assessment of tactile sensitivity between undergraduate and postgraduate health sciences students

BackgroundManual tactile sensitivity is a necessary skill for accurate manual palpation. Although manual palpation is a core subject in most health sciences curricula; no studies have analyzed the evolution of touch sensitivity during the different educational levels.ObjectiveThe present study aims to compare manual tactile sensitivity in two groups of physical therapists: undergraduate-trained vs. postgraduate trained.MethodsTwenty-two physical therapists with an undergraduate education and 17 physical therapists with postgraduate school education completed a haptic test consisting in the tactile recognition of two geometric figures. The accuracy of figure reproduction, time of figure exploration and student's perception of task difficulty were scored.ResultsTherapists with postgraduate school training showed better accuracy than undergraduate students in the reproduction of the more difficult figure. Moreover, postgraduate students spent less time on exploration, and they rated the recognition of the simpler figure easier than the undergraduate-trained students.ConclusionsPostgraduate school-trained physical therapists presented greater touch sensitivity than undergraduate-trained physical therapists. Teaching strategies used during the different educational periods may contribute to the enhancement of tactile sensitivity and to the improvement of manual palpation accuracy in health science students.