Search results

Given rising incidence rates of mental health concerns in the general population it is important for all primary health care practitioners, including chiropractors, to have knowledge of such presentations. Practitioners frequently need to refer clients to appropriate mental health services, manage the biopsychosocial aspects of all conditions they treat, and work in interdisciplinary teams to ensure optimal patient outcomes. The mental health literacy (MHL) of these practitioners may, however, be influenced by both learnt knowledge and common misconceptions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the MHL of a final year Master of Chiropractic student cohort.

In total, 89 students completed an online questionnaire assessing mental health knowledge, misconceptions, perceived value of such knowledge for practicing chiropractors and demographic information.

Student knowledge of the primary symptoms for depression and schizophrenia was competent, similar to community samples. However a high false positive response suggested students were poor at mental health differential diagnosis. A high number of common misconceptions about mental health were also endorsed, particularly in relation to depression, anxiety and suicide. Age and value of such knowledge seemed to predict greater MHL.

The present study offers direction for chiropractic education. In addition to content-based education, MHL may improve through targeting the students’ perceived value of the information for chiropractors and combating common misconceptions. Future research could evaluate the incremental value of these approaches, and assess subsequent behavioural responses such as the students’ confidence in managing patients with mental health concerns, and knowing when to refer on.

Taken together, the current results suggest chiropractic students are able to identify symptoms causing distress; however tend to over-pathologise and endorse false symptoms as indicative of specific mental illnesses. In other words, students are poor at mental health differential diagnosis. Students also seemed to simultaneously hold a large number of misconceptions about mental health in general. It is of great importance to better understand gaps in student knowledge about mental health to prepare them for working with patients in a health setting.

The purpose of this paper is to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (ATSI), it is expected that non-ATSI health-care professionals become culturally aware; however, participants’ perceptions of the relative merit of cultural awareness training (CAT) formats is uncertain.

The authors compared undergraduate students’ perceptions of an asynchronous online format with onsite delivery formats of CAT using a mixed-method design. Students from five successive cohorts (n = 64) in an undergraduate programme were invited to complete a post-training survey which gathered quantitative and qualitative data.

Whilst feedback was positive regarding both formats, the onsite format was preferred qualitatively with several valuable learning outcome themes emerging from the results. These themes included; “perceived benefits of self-evaluation of students’ own culture whilst learning about Aboriginal culture”; “encouraging to be provided with scenarios, examples and exercises to enhance cultural awareness” and “engagement with the interactive facilitator approach”. There were differing views about the benefits of learning the history of oppression which warrant further research.

Results may be applicable to undergraduate allied health students who participate in clinical immersion placements (CIPs) who participate in Aboriginal CAT.

Given the changing dynamic in education forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, more resources may need to be directed to improving online training and possibly combining formats in course delivery.

The strength of the study is that the authors achieved a response rate of 100%, thus the results are highly significant for the sample. This sample represents 41.3% of chiropractic students who attended CAT and CIPs at this university over the course of 9 years, thus the results could be generalized to chiropractic students who participated in these types of placements.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to compare student perceptions of different formats of Aboriginal CAT for final year chiropractic undergraduate students in Australia.

Immigrants’ access to health services is a widely researched topic, yet few studies examine immigrants’ use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This study uses the Behavioral Model to compare overall CAM use and use of acupuncture, chiropractic, herbs, yoga, and relaxation by immigrant status (nativity and time in the United States). It then explains the nativity gap in use by assessing knowledge, cost, and need as potential reasons for not using these modalities. Results show that controlling for predisposing, enabling, and need factors, recent immigrants use CAM less than the U.S.-born. Lack of knowledge of CAM modalities partially explains why some recent immigrants do not use acupuncture, chiropractic, or relaxation, while established immigrants cite lack of need as a reason for not using yoga. Cost does not explain immigrants’ lower use of these five modalities. Finally, ethnicity moderates the association between immigrant status and reasons for not using CAM.

Patient satisfaction is paramount to maintaining high clinical quality assurance. This study seeks to compare response rates, response bias, and the completeness of data between paper and electronic collection modes of a chiropractic patient satisfaction survey.

A convenience sample of 206 patients presenting to a chiropractic college clinic were surveyed concerning satisfaction with their chiropractic care. Paper (in‐clinic and postal) and electronic modes of survey administration were compared for response rates and non‐response bias.

The online data collection mode resulted in fewer non‐responses and a higher response rate, and did not evince response bias when compared to paper modes. The postal paper mode predicted non‐response rates over the in‐clinic paper and online modalities and exhibited a gender bias.

This current study was a single clinic study; future studies should consider multi‐clinic data collections. Busy clinic operations and available staff resources restricted the ability to conduct a random sampling of patients or to invite all eligible patients, therefore limiting the generalizability of collected survey data.

Results of this study will provide data to aid development of survey protocols that efficiently, account for available human resources, and are convenient for patients while allowing for the most complete and accurate data collection possible in an educational clinic setting.

Understanding patient responses across survey modes is critical for the cultivation of quality business intelligence within college teaching clinic settings. This study bridges measurement evidence from three popular data collection modalities and offers support for higher levels of quality for web‐based data collection.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the outcomes of chiropractic manipulative and manual therapy (MMT) provided to residents experiencing spinal pain in a substance misuse therapeutic community (TC).

Clinical audit to explore the potential benefits of the interventions offered to residents experiencing spinal pain in a TC. Residents seeking care underwent an assessment by either general practitioner or chiropractic intern. Eligible participants could choose one of the four interventions: usual care without any additional treatment (Group 1), usual care with simple analgesics (Group 2), usual care plus MMT without simple analgesics (Group 3), or usual care plus MMT with simple analgesics (Group 4). Outcome measures were the RAND-36-item short form health-related quality-of-life survey and the patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ). Data were collected at baseline and after six weeks for each participant, with those participants choosing MMT receiving up to six treatments over the study period. Two cycles of six weeks of data collection was used. Data were analysed for statistically significant (repeated measures ANOVA with Bonferroni correction) and clinically meaningful changes in scores.

Of 71 self-presenting residents seeking care, 68 were eligible to participate. Of these, 32 chose usual care with simple analgesics (Group 2) and 36 chose usual care plus the package of MMT but without simple analgesics (Group 3). None chose usual care without additional treatment or usual care plus the package of MMT with analgesics, thus offering only the data from two groups for analysis. Group allocation was non-random and based on patient choice. Between-group analysis of the cumulative and component RAND-36 data indicated a significant difference between the two groups (p=0.034), particularly in the physical outcomes (p=0.012), indicating that Group 3 had improved scores over Group 2. Group 3 showed a significant change in RAND-36 scores (p<0.01) when compared with Group 2 (p=0.23) over the six-week treatment period. The PSQ scores of the two groups showed a statistically significant difference (p=0.0093), suggesting that Group 3 had greater patient satisfaction with care. The outcomes suggest that the package of MMT in Group 3, delivered by an appropriately trained clinician may have added to therapeutic effect that extended beyond physical outcomes but also influenced psychological outcomes.

The results of this clinical outcome-based audit suggest that the addition of a package of chiropractic MMT to usual care may be of benefit over usual care with simple analgesics for residents of a TC with spinal pain. The results intimate that benefits may extend across both the physical and psychological components of the pain experience, although a confirmatory study is recommended to substantiate these insights.

As far as the authors are aware, this trial is the first of this type in a TC, with the insights and experience gained supporting a definitive trial.

This chapter introduces an emerging innovative technology known as MAT (Media Annotation Tool). MAT is an online tool that allows students to annotate video, thus improving student engagement and reflection. This chapter outlines the history of the development of this tool and provides analysis of data provided from a range of course integrations. From idea inception the goal was to render video active and collaborative for learning rather than traditional passive learning. In the multiple-case study it was found that students reported higher engagement/satisfaction with MAT in cases where there was learner-to-learner collaboration, teacher feedback and assessment linkage. This chapter focuses on the undergraduate cases of the study, from the disciplines of teacher education, medical radiation and chiropractic, and also references a postgraduate case from the discipline of law. The data from these cases points to the success of MAT as dependent on two key factors: learning design and the technical effectiveness of the MAT technology.

Interprofessional education (IPE) is a method to create an environment that fosters interprofessional communication, understanding the roles and responsibilities of each profession, learning the skills to organize and communicate information for patients, families and members of the health care team. Providing IPE to health professional students can prepare them in the workforce to have the necessary skills to function in a collaborative practice ready environment. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the methods used in developing IPE curriculum, faculty training as debriefers/facilitators, identify learning objectives and outcomes.

The faculty and student surveys utilized a Likert scale. Learning objectives for the student survey assessed learning objective including communication of roles and responsibilities, communication and organization of information, engagement of other health professions (HP) in shared patient-centered problem solving, interprofessional assessment of patient status, and preparation of patients from transition of care to home. The faculty survey assessed faculty experience levels in IPE, role as facilitator/debriefer, and future needs for sustainability of the program.

Student evaluation of IPE simulation experience revealed students believed they improved their interprofessional communication skills and had a better understanding of health professional roles and responsibilities. Faculty feedback indicated that HP students achieved learning objectives and their continued commitment to IPE however additional training and development were identified as areas of need.

This paper can assist other educational institutions in developing IPE and structuring IPE assessment particularly in the HPs.

The public health care will be impacted positively by having health care providers specifically trained to work in teams and understand collaborative care. Student graduates in the HPs will be better prepared to function as a team in real clinical care following their participation in interprofessional simulation.

This interprofessional simulation curriculum involves student learners from eight different HPs and participation of over 30 faculty from differing professions. This curriculum is unique in its bread and depth of collaboration and true teamwork across disciplines.

Corporate culture is a product of managerial mindset and it consists of obscured, undisclosed and unconditionally accepted assumptions that underlie corporate behaviour. This study seeks to investigate the extent of corporate mindset since it is a causal factor in crises.

Data were obtained by questionnaire from decision-making executives in hospitals, medical centres, aged care, pharmacies, dental clinics and practices in physiotherapy, chiropractic and podiatry.

Organizations were judged to be in a state of medium disavowal concerning their belief that the impact of any crisis would be small. Around two thirds of participants indicated that the general mind-set of organizations contributes to effective crisis management, and that a welcoming attitude would prevail in the event of the implementation of a organization-wide, systems-wide, crisis management program. With regard to denial mechanisms or beliefs that hinder effective crisis management, two-thirds indicated inactive/passive resistance and one-third indicated active/aggressive resistance. The reasons for resistance were apathy, anti-change, and concern about cost.

Cultural opposition to crisis preparedness varies significantly between organizations and poses a major barrier to effective crisis management. This study empowers health leaders by identifying several mindset changes that are required to create crisis-resilient health organisations.

Crisis-prone organizations are reactive and unprepared, and are characterized by deficiencies in damage containment mechanisms (DCMs), which are tools and processes intended to prevent and/or manage crises. In the literature, DCMs are usually studied piecemeal and have not been studied in health organizations in a broader organizational context. Thus, this study aims to identify the use of DCMs and the frequency with which they are inspected, maintained and reviewed for design flaws.

Data were obtained by questionnaire from decision-making executives in hospitals, medical centers, aged care, pharmacies, dental clinics and practices in physiotherapy, chiropractic and podiatry.

Heavy reliance was placed on planning and technological DCMs while human and social methods were typically not considered. Organizations considered limited crisis types and there was a disconnect between the types of DCMs and the crises they targeted. Over half the organizations reviewed DCMs annually or more frequently. Backup DCMs mostly consisted of on-call staff and first responders with some auxiliary communications systems. Interviewees stated that these were designed to prevent financial, equipment breakdown, human resource and occupational safety crises.

Most organizations had inadequate DCMs due to a lack of top-down support, planning and foresight. Furthermore, these health organizations demonstrated a lack of understanding of what DCMs are and how they function. The conclusion is that most of the health organizations surveyed are crisis-prone and health leaders need to put more effort into looking broadly at DCMs to improve organizational preparedness.

The paper has twin aims, one practical and one theoretical. From a practical point of view, the aim is to begin to identify appropriate marketing strategies and tactics for complementary and alternative therapists. From a theoretical point of view, the aim is to shape a research agenda for the exploration of marketing frameworks – such as service quality, consumer behaviour and relationship marketing – in the new and rather unusual context of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

The paper reviews the literature on CAM from a UK and a US perspective and provides the findings from a small online survey of users of CAM.

Initial research suggests that factors ancillary to the main therapeutic purpose of the medical treatment, particularly the level of personal care felt by the client, can have a substantial effect on client satisfaction. It is suggested that this is a sector in which marketing through relationships, networks and alliances is practised extensively and implicitly, and, therefore, that it would be a fruitful context in which to research and to apply relationship marketing principles.

The paper develops a research agenda for further inquiry into the emerging area of business and marketing in CAM.