UNLABELLED BACKGROUND Because maintenance care (MC) is frequently used by chiropractors in the management of patients with back pain, it is necessary to define the rationale, frequency and indications for MC consultations, and the contents of such consultations. The objectives of the two studies described in this article are: i) to determine the typical spacing between visits for MC patients...

A national telephone survey was conducted in 1998 using random-digit dialing and the first Osteopathic Survey of Healthcare in America (OSTEOSURV-I) instrument to determine patients' satisfaction with their healthcare, as well as their perceptions of osteopathic medicine. Of the 1106 respondents, 243 (22.0%) had received medical care from an osteopathic physician, and another 307 (27.8%) claime...

BACKGROUND Chiropractic treatment for low back pain (LBP) can often be divided into two phases: Initial treatment of the problem to attempt to remove pain and bring it back into its pre-clinical or maximum improvement status, and "maintenance care", during which it is attempted to maintain this status. Although the use of chiropractic maintenance care has been described and discussed in the lit...

BACKGROUND Back problems are often recurring or chronic. It is therefore not surprising that chiropractors wish to prevent their return or reduce their impact. This is often attempted with a long-term treatment strategy, commonly called maintenance care. However, some aspects of maintenance care are considered controversial. It is therefore relevant to investigate the scientific evidence formin...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) was developed to investigate determinants of specific clinical behaviors and inform the design of interventions to change professional behavior. This framework was used to explore the beliefs of chiropractors in an American Provider Network and two Canadian provinces about their adherence to evidence-based recommendations for spin...

Background Previous research has investigated utilization rates, who sees chiropractors, for what reasons, and the type of care that chiropractors provide. However, these studies have not been comprehensively synthesized. We aimed to give a global overview by summarizing the current literature on the utilization of chiropractic services, reasons for seeking care, patient profiles, and assessmen...

BACKGROUND It is known that not all chiropractors follow mainstream guidelines on the use of diagnostic ionising radiation. Various reasons have been discussed in the literature, including using radiography to screen for congenital anomalies, to perform postural analysis, to search for contraindications to spinal manipulation, and to document chiropractic subluxations, i.e., tiny anatomical dis...