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Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices

BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use has steadily increased globally over the past two decades and is increasingly playing a role in the healthcare system in the United States. CAM practice-based effectiveness research requires an understanding of the settings in which CAM pr...

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Autores principales: Floden, Lysbeth, Howerter, Amy, Matthews, Eva, Nichter, Mark, Cunningham, James K, Ritenbaugh, Cheryl, Gordon, Judith S, Muramoto, Myra L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25933801
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-015-0659-7
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author Floden, Lysbeth
Howerter, Amy
Matthews, Eva
Nichter, Mark
Cunningham, James K
Ritenbaugh, Cheryl
Gordon, Judith S
Muramoto, Myra L
author_facet Floden, Lysbeth
Howerter, Amy
Matthews, Eva
Nichter, Mark
Cunningham, James K
Ritenbaugh, Cheryl
Gordon, Judith S
Muramoto, Myra L
author_sort Floden, Lysbeth
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use has steadily increased globally over the past two decades and is increasingly playing a role in the healthcare system in the United States. CAM practice-based effectiveness research requires an understanding of the settings in which CAM practitioners provide services. This paper describes and quantifies practice environment characteristics for a cross-sectional sample of doctors of chiropractic (DCs), licensed acupuncturists (LAcs), and licensed massage therapists (LMTs) in the United States. METHODS: Using a cross-sectional telephone survey of DCs (n = 32), LAcs (n = 70), and LMTs (n = 184) in the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, we collected data about each location where practitioners work, as well as measures on practitioner and practice characteristics including: patient volume, number of locations where practitioners worked, CAM practitioner types working at each location, and business models of practice. RESULTS: The majority of practitioners reported having one practice location (93.8% of DCs, 80% of LAcs and 59.8% of LMTs) where they treat patients. Patient volume/week was related to practitioner type; DCs saw 83.13 (SD = 49.29) patients/week, LAcs saw 22.29 (SD = 16.88) patients/week, and LMTs saw 14.21 (SD =10.25) patients per week. Practitioners completed surveys for N = 388 practice locations. Many CAM practices were found to be multidisciplinary and/or have more than one practitioner: 9/35 (25.7%) chiropractic practices, 24/87 (27.6%) acupuncture practices, and 141/266 (53.0%) massage practices. Practice business models across CAM practitioner types were heterogeneous, e.g. sole proprietor, employee, partner, and independent contractor. CONCLUSIONS: CAM practices vary across and within disciplines in ways that can significantly impact design and implementation of practice-based research. CAM research and intervention programs need to be mindful of the heterogeneity of CAM practices in order to create appropriate interventions, study designs, and implementation plans.
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spelling pubmed-44293452015-05-14 Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices Floden, Lysbeth Howerter, Amy Matthews, Eva Nichter, Mark Cunningham, James K Ritenbaugh, Cheryl Gordon, Judith S Muramoto, Myra L BMC Complement Altern Med Research Article BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use has steadily increased globally over the past two decades and is increasingly playing a role in the healthcare system in the United States. CAM practice-based effectiveness research requires an understanding of the settings in which CAM practitioners provide services. This paper describes and quantifies practice environment characteristics for a cross-sectional sample of doctors of chiropractic (DCs), licensed acupuncturists (LAcs), and licensed massage therapists (LMTs) in the United States. METHODS: Using a cross-sectional telephone survey of DCs (n = 32), LAcs (n = 70), and LMTs (n = 184) in the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, we collected data about each location where practitioners work, as well as measures on practitioner and practice characteristics including: patient volume, number of locations where practitioners worked, CAM practitioner types working at each location, and business models of practice. RESULTS: The majority of practitioners reported having one practice location (93.8% of DCs, 80% of LAcs and 59.8% of LMTs) where they treat patients. Patient volume/week was related to practitioner type; DCs saw 83.13 (SD = 49.29) patients/week, LAcs saw 22.29 (SD = 16.88) patients/week, and LMTs saw 14.21 (SD =10.25) patients per week. Practitioners completed surveys for N = 388 practice locations. Many CAM practices were found to be multidisciplinary and/or have more than one practitioner: 9/35 (25.7%) chiropractic practices, 24/87 (27.6%) acupuncture practices, and 141/266 (53.0%) massage practices. Practice business models across CAM practitioner types were heterogeneous, e.g. sole proprietor, employee, partner, and independent contractor. CONCLUSIONS: CAM practices vary across and within disciplines in ways that can significantly impact design and implementation of practice-based research. CAM research and intervention programs need to be mindful of the heterogeneity of CAM practices in order to create appropriate interventions, study designs, and implementation plans. BioMed Central 2015-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4429345/ /pubmed/25933801 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-015-0659-7 Text en © Floden et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Floden, Lysbeth
Howerter, Amy
Matthews, Eva
Nichter, Mark
Cunningham, James K
Ritenbaugh, Cheryl
Gordon, Judith S
Muramoto, Myra L
Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title_full Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title_fullStr Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title_full_unstemmed Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title_short Considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
title_sort considerations for practice-based research: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic, acupuncture and massage practices
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25933801
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12906-015-0659-7
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