PHYS THER
Vol. 81, No. 6, June 2001, p. 1232
Author Response
Susan M McGinty,
Michael C Cicero,
Jessica ME Cicero,
Lori Schultz-Janney and
Kari L Williams-Shipman
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Introduction
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We appreciate Dr Guccione's thoughtful comments regarding our study. We did not mean to imply causality by the conclusions. We did intend to imply that there seems to be a strong relationship between the decision to not belong to the Association and the perceived high cost of membership.
The demographic makeup of our sample differed in several ways from the demographics of American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) members nationally.1 Forty-nine percent of the respondents in our sample worked full-time as physical therapists, whereas 78% of APTA members nationally worked full-time. Thirty-five percent of our sample worked in acute care, and only 13% of APTA members reported working in acute care. Twenty-six percent of our sample worked in home health compared with 11% of APTA members. These numbers suggest a different distribution of areas of interest and practice that may have influenced decisions regarding membership. We believe it is reasonable to assume that if cost were a major reason for nonmembership, as the respondents in our sample indicated, then physical therapists who worked part-time would be less likely to join the Association. We believe that our reasoning is consistent with APTA's statistics, which indicate that only 16% of members reported that they worked part-time; 42% of our sample worked part-time.
We did not find it surprising that most respondents had no opinion regarding areas of practice in which they were not engaged and of which they probably had no knowledge. We specifically chose to use a 5-point scale with a "no opinion" option to allow respondents to choose "no opinion" in an effort to establish the relative importance of the different issues addressed in the survey. Based on this rationale, cost was clearly the most important issue (only 7% and 8% of the sample indicated "no opinion" to the 2 cost statements compared with a range of 22% to 53% who indicated "no opinion" to the other survey statements).
We certainly did not mean to imply that the value of membership is only what we find in our mailboxes. We do think that APTA should consider offering reduced-cost memberships without publications. This change could have a positive effect on those physical therapists who indicated that they were married to other physical therapists and duplicate reading materials were not wanted. What several respondents requested was a choice of publications for members, specifically, section publications that they indicated might be more relevant to their practice. Whether these changes would lead to a change in membership status as our data indicate, however, can only be determined through future research or from changes in APTA policies.
We disagree that the survey was directed at national activities. The state chapters provide many of the services addressed in the survey at the state level such as services related to state licensure issues, practice protection from the encroachment of other professions, and services dealing with reimbursement issues related to state-mandated programs such as those in California (eg, California Children's Services, Medi-Cal, workers' compensation). The location of district meetings is certainly not a national issue, and continuing education is addressed at both the state and national levels. We agree that the interrelationship between perceptions of the national organization and state organizations deserves further study.
In addition, we think that critical inquiry into the comparative demographics of members and nonmembers is needed. This information might help the organization at the national and state levels to adopt strategies that address the needs of people who may be underrepresented in membership.
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References
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- Member Opinion Survey. Alexandria, Va: American Physical Therapy Association;2000
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Copyright © 2001 by the American Physical Therapy Association.
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