
To be eligible to participate, each individual was required to be a certified AT in his or her current position for ≥1 year and provide patient care to the specified populations for ≥30 hours per week. 10 Although these groups reflect diverse subsets of participants, due to the few individuals practicing in several of these settings, we believed it was necessary to group the settings in order to obtain adequate data for saturation. Our rationale for these groups was 2-fold: (1) the NATA has traditionally grouped these types of settings in the context of committee organization and (2) each group represents a similar percentage of the NATA membership (approximately 9%). The emerging setting group consisted of ATs employed in military, performing arts, industrial, rodeo, and extreme sports settings. The clinic group consisted of individuals employed in the rehabilitation clinic, hospital, or physician practice setting. Before recruitment, we categorized these settings into 2 groups to focus our recruitment. The purpose of our study was to examine the documentation practices of ATs employed in clinic, hospital, physician practice, and emerging clinical settings. Because these settings account for approximately 14% of the NATA membership, it is essential to examine this population of ATs in order to determine their documentation practices. Thus, the purpose of our study was to examine the documentation practices of ATs working in clinic, physician practice, and emerging clinical settings. Strategies for and challenges to patient care documentation are important to understand when developing educational and other resources for documentation practices.
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10 Previous investigators 8, 9 proposed that although ATs have the same professional responsibilities regardless of work setting, the unique characteristics of a practice setting may affect an AT's ability to meet these professional standards. The researchers suggested that the experiences of ATs may vary depending on their work setting, and it is therefore valuable to explore professional concerns from a variety of perspectives.Īlthough much has been learned about ATs' documentation practices, most of the in-depth information has been obtained from ATs employed in the secondary school setting, which constitutes approximately 17% of the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) membership based on salary survey respondents.

For example, Mazerolle et al 8 found that ATs working in traditional practice settings, such as secondary school and collegiate settings, experienced more work-family conflict than ATs working in nontraditional practice settings, such as clinics, education, and industry. 7 Authors examining other topics, including work-life balance 8 and work setting characteristics, 9 described aspects of different practice settings that influenced ATs' daily lives. 7 Participants indicated that these work environments made it difficult to document patient care thoroughly and consistently. For example, ATs employed in secondary schools provided a large volume of patient care in a short amount of time, often in multiple locations (eg, practice fields and athletic training facility). In a recent study, 7 ATs employed in the secondary school identified setting-specific experiences that shaped their documentation practices. To date, most experts on athletic training documentation have focused on ATs employed in the secondary school setting, 3 – 5 with the exception of 1 group, 6 which captured clinicians in a variety of clinical settings. Their documentation practices were influenced by their educational training, available resources, and patient volume. 2 Previous researchers 3 – 6 have revealed details about ATs' documentation practices, including their reasons for, mechanics and perceptions of, and challenges in completing documentation.


1 Thorough and accurate documentation should include a complete picture of the AT's care supplied to a patient, including the services provided and communication with and about the patient. Documentation of patient care is a professional responsibility of athletic trainers (ATs).
