Abstract

The development of postgraduate programs accompanies the disciplinary growth, particularly in physical therapy/kinesiology. However, centralized records regarding the physical therapy postgraduate programs in Chile, as well as the preferences at selecting such programs are unknown. The aim of this study is to describe the Chilean physical therapy postgraduate programs available, and it characterize the postgraduate preferences of Chilean physical therapists. For this, the web pages of all the universities recognized by the Ministry of Education of Chile were visited. While, to characterize the need for improvement, an online survey was applied focusing on investigating the interest areas of development and preferences regarding the characteristics of the postgraduate programs. In the national offer, diploma programs are the most recurrent, over specialty and master’s. Furthermore, most of the reported programs are geographically located in the central zone of the country 113 physical therapists answered the on-line survey, who indicated traditional postgraduate fields as preferred (e.g. musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory). Moreover, most of them preferred clinical programs, whereas the quality of lecturers and the educational institution, along with the associated economic costs of these programs were highlighted as relevant factors at the time of choosing a postgraduate program. As conclusion, the Chilean postgraduate programs are mainly clinical, and they are deeply centralized. At the same time, physical therapists preferred clinical postgraduate programs.