Objective: To study the usage and attitudes toward chiropractic care amongst health professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Methods: Survey sampling was conducted between August 12th and September 2nd in 2019 by Colmar Brunton, a marketing research company, using the Medidata’s healthcare professional database, New Zealand’s foremost database of medical and related professions.
Results: There were 353 health professionals who completed the surveys, an 8.6% response rate. The sample included general medical practitioners (GPs), locums, nurse practitioners, physiotherapists, and midwives. Most participants were female (68%) and the most frequent age range was between 50 and 64 years old (42%). Overall, nurses and midwives were more favourable toward referring or recommending patients to chiropractors. Doctors were more likely to recommend a chiropractor than provide a referral. Commentaries from the qualitative data of the health professionals indicated that there is a need to improve their views of chiropractic care, particularly that patients are getting ‘value for money,’ interventions are ‘safe,’ and that practitioners convey short and long-term evidence-based treatment effectiveness amongst clients.
Conclusion: Health professionals have relatively low perceptions of chiropractor care. Improving perceptions of chiropractor care was key to referrals. We suggest that favourable information about chiropractor care in social media and interdisciplinary education, starting early in training and throughout one’s career, may address these issues.
Author keywords: Chiropractic; Survey Research; Attitudes Toward Care
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