Conventional Medicine Practitioners’Perception on Chiropractic
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Huang, Joyce Ju-Yu
Abstract
Background: Chiropractic is a health care profession in the Western society for over a century. It is the largest profession in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine system, and is considered as the closest to the mainstream. After massive amount of research, it is evident that chiropractic not only gains high patient satisfactory rate, it is also a very cost-effective approach on treating neuromusculoskeletal conditions. However, it is not widely introduced in the Asian countries, especially in Taiwan. Public, as well as health care workers may not have a clear understanding of what chiropractic profession is all about. bjective: The objective of this study is to understand medical doctors’ perception on chiropractic and to determine the necessity of establishment of such a profession in Taiwan. ethod: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Mandarin language to twelve licensed medical doctors in Taiwan. Results in the form of narratives were analyzed using common coding technique. esult: Among the twelve medical doctors, most associate chiropractic with rehabilitation or folk therapy. All of them have heard of the term chiropractic, but most have limited knowledge about the scope of practice, length and content of education of the profession. Most participants do not know that chiropractors earn a doctoral credential, and thus relate chiropractors to therapists or technicians. Almost all participants support the legislation to regulate those who perform spinal manipulations, but qualification is a debate. About half of the respondents emphasize on the importance of evidence-based practice. onclusion: After these in-depth interviews and the narrative analysis, it is evident that numerous misunderstanding about the profession due to lack of knowledge have impeded the development of chiropractic profession in Taiwan. Further research including long-term randomized controlled trials on the efficacy and public demand of chiropractic in Taiwan are recommended.
Subjects
chiropractic
perception
complementary and alternative medicine
Taiwan
Type
thesis
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