Abstract:

Introduction:
The unexpected situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has favoured a revolution in educational strategies. The pandemic has forced online teaching in many contexts. This fact has generated a debate about online education's capacity to transmit the same level of knowledge as face-to-face teaching in those content of a practical nature. On the other hand, clinical cases are a common learning strategy in Health Sciences. Although some authors have described different kinds of clinical cases (e.g., real or simulated), others highlight essential differences between them. The objective of this study was to analyse the use the capacity of online simulated clinical cases in the acquisition of skills and knowledge in postgraduate physiotherapy studies.

Methodology:
Twenty students of an online Physiotherapy Master’s degree participated in the study. In the subject “Planning, Quantification and Design of Therapeutic Physical Exercise Programs”, the lecturer described different concepts related to three dimensions: exercise equipment types of exercises, and tests and measurement instruments. We used eight online simulated clinical cases in order to achieve a maximum understanding of the described concepts. To evaluate this learning strategy's effectiveness, the students evaluated, through an 11-point scale, the ability of clinical cases to facilitate understanding of each dimension of concepts, being 0 "absolutely useless" and 10 "absolutely useful".

Results:
The online clinical cases obtained a good score (higher than 6 out of 10) in the three dimensions of concepts, according to the students' perception, in terms of the ability to facilitate understanding. However, the results depended on the type of concept applied, obtaining an average of 7.96 (1.27) for the concepts related to tests and measurement instruments, 7.12 (1.05) for the concepts related to types of exercises, and a 6.42 (1.11) for items related to exercise equipment.

Conclusions:
According to the results of this study, the use of online clinical cases seems useful for facilitating the understanding of practical concepts in postgraduate Physiotherapy studies. In those dimensions of concepts that can be physically practiced, such as the performance of exercises or the use of exercise equipment, it seems to have a slightly lower utility than in dimensions more related to theoretical concepts, such as the selection of tests and measurement instruments adapted to each patient. However, the results suggest that online clinical cases can be a valid and useful option in postgraduate Physiotherapy studies.

Keywords:

Clinical case, education, innovation, technology, simulation.