Integrating curriculum-based ideological and political education into a common disease rehabilitation course: a cross-sectional post-course survey with retrospective academic-record analysis

Curriculum-based ideological and political education is increasingly incorporated into health-profession courses, but quantitative evidence from rehabilitation curricula remains limited. We evaluated student-reported learning perceptions, teaching satisfaction, and routine academic-performance indicators after an integrated Common Disease Rehabilitation course using sports injury rehabilitation as a representative teaching unit. We combined a cross-sectional post-course survey with retrospective analysis of linked routine academic records. The course was delivered to 85 vocational-college rehabilitation-therapy students in two intact classes during the second semester of the 2024–2025 academic year. All students completed a 20-item five-point Likert questionnaire after course completion and had complete data for routine skill assessment, routine objective examination, midterm examination, and final examination scores. Analyses included descriptive statistics, internal-consistency reliability, item analysis, exploratory principal component analysis (PCA), exploratory subgroup comparisons, a descriptive paired comparison of midterm and final scores, and Spearman correlations with false-discovery-rate correction. The overall survey score was 4.71 ± 0.55; the learning-effectiveness and teaching-process/satisfaction content-group scores were 4.69 ± 0.58 and 4.77 ± 0.54, respectively. Cronbach alpha was 0.986 for the overall scale. The first PCA component explained 80.4% of variance, indicating a dominant overall positive-perception dimension rather than validated multidimensional subscales. Mean routine skill, routine objective examination, midterm, and final scores were 76.12 ± 9.01, 78.12 ± 8.31, 76.19 ± 5.77, and 80.21 ± 7.98, respectively. Final scores were descriptively higher than midterm scores (mean difference 4.02 points, 95% CI 3.19–4.86; P < 0.001), but this was not interpreted as a pre-post intervention effect. Overall survey scores were not significantly correlated with academic-performance indicators after false-discovery-rate correction. The integrated course was accompanied by highly positive student-reported learning and teaching perceptions, while routine academic indicators provided complementary performance information. The study does not establish causal educational effects or directly demonstrate changes in humanistic or professional competencies. Prospective controlled studies using validated subjective and objective assessments are needed.