Background The use of ultrasound among Spanish physiotherapists has grown in recent years.

Methods On-line survey of 145 physical therapists spanish.

Results A sample of 145 physical therapists (PTs) was recruited from 20 different geographical areas (figure 1). The time mean ±SD since subjects obtained their PT degree, started their ultrasonography training and clinical use were 10.40±7.10, 3.74±3.46 and 3.11±3.11 years, respectively. The PTs percentages who presented PhD, MSc (120 ECTS) and MSc (60 ECTS) degrees were 2.8%, 8.3% and 11%, respectively. Indeed, the 95.9% and 97.9% of PTs considered the ultrasonography necessity and evidence based use, respectively. Furthermore, the 28% of PTs believed that ultrasonography specialisation is difficult, althougth the 79% and 72.2% knew the Rehabilitative Ultrasound Imaging (RUSI) and Ultrasound Imaging (USI) term, respectively. Among these PTs, the 78.5% presented ultrasonography education and the 98.6% agreed with the use of ultrasonography in their clinic practice. Nevertheless, the 58.7% considered the cost of ultrasonography education as a limitation, despite of the 93.7% of PTs would like to study more deeply about ultrasonography. The 14%, 25.4%, 27.2% and 33.3% of PTs have received from 10 to 20, from 21 to 40, from 41 to 80 or more than 100 hours of ultrasonography education, respectively. Daily, the 65% of PTs works with ultrasonography, as well as the 22.7%, 21.6% and 51.7% carry out a mean from 1 to 5, from 5 to 10 or more than 10 ultrasonography assessments per week, respectively. The 72.4% found signs with ultrasonography different from conventional evaluation. Lineal transducer (99%), convex transducer (15.5%), panoramic view (24.6%), elastography (8.5%), colour Doppler (79.8%), touch screen (0.7%) and B-steer (3%) were included in their ultrasound tools. From an economical point of view, the 67.6% considered the ultrasound as a profitable tool in the physical therapy clinics. Finally, the majority of PTs (93.8%) stated that the RUSI is a physiotherapy competence, respecting the USI radiology competences.

Conclusions It is an unstoppable reality.