Differentiating intraprofessional attitudes toward paradigms in health care delivery among chiropractic factions: results from a randomly sampled survey

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Marion McGregor¹  H Stephen Injeyan¹  David Soave¹  Aaron A Puhl²  Christine Reinhart² 

[1] Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, 6100 Leslie Street, M2H 3 J1, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;Private Practice, Able Body Health Clinic, 1212 3rd Avenue South, T1J 0 J9, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada;

关键词: Chiropractic;    Factions;    Interprofessional relations;    Health care teams;    Attitude of health personnel;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-51

 received in 2013-10-06, accepted in 2014-02-06,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAs health care has increased in complexity and health care teams have been offered as a solution, so too is there an increased need for stronger interprofessional collaboration. However the intraprofessional factions that exist within every profession challenge interprofessional communication through contrary paradigms. As a contender in the conservative spinal health care market, factions within chiropractic that result in unorthodox practice behaviours may compromise interprofessional relations and that profession’s progress toward institutionalization. The purpose of this investigation was to quantify the professional stratification among Canadian chiropractic practitioners and evaluate the practice perceptions of those factions.MethodsA stratified random sample of 740 Canadian chiropractors was surveyed to determine faction membership and how professional stratification could be related to views that could be considered unorthodox to current evidence-based care and guidelines. Stratification in practice behaviours is a stated concern of mainstream medicine when considering interprofessional referrals.ResultsOf 740 deliverable questionnaires, 503 were returned for a response rate of 68%. Less than 20% of chiropractors (18.8%) were aligned with a predefined unorthodox perspective of the conditions they treat. Prediction models suggest that unorthodox perceptions of health practice related to treatment choices, x-ray use and vaccinations were strongly associated with unorthodox group membership (X2 =13.4, p = 0.0002).ConclusionChiropractors holding unorthodox views may be identified based on response to specific beliefs that appear to align with unorthodox health practices. Despite continued concerns by mainstream medicine, only a minority of the profession has retained a perspective in contrast to current scientific paradigms. Understanding the profession’s factions is important to the anticipation of care delivery when considering interprofessional referral.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© McGregor et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014