Who consults chiropractors in Victoria, Australia?: Reasons for attending, general health and lifestyle habits of chiropractic patient.
Melanie J. Charity, Helena C. Britt, Bruce F. Walker, Jane M. Gunn, Kirsty Forsdike-Young, Barbara I. Polus, Simon D. French.
Chiropractic & Manual Therapies201624:28 DOI: 10.1186/s12998-016-0110-2
https://chiromt.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12998-016-0110-2
There are 1000’s of practising chiropractors in Australia and in our clinic, patients present to the clinic for solutions for varying spinal complaints, sighting the chiropractor as their choice for management of the spine.
The most common complaints that we see are low back pain, neck pain, sciatica, nerve pain, headaches and postural correction. What we also observe is that many patient’s have accompanying health issues that we can help provide guidance or accountability for. In this study, we learn that whilst the clinical consultation is one on one, in fact chiropractor’s can provide proactive health management for the greater good of public health care.
In the above study, the data was collected in 2012 with 52 chiropractor providing 100 consecutive clinical consultation encounters. The study found that many encounters were for musculoskeletal conditions, wellness and maintenance of health. The majority of the patients had an accompanying musculoskeletal, circulatory or metabolic condition.
In the study it was found:
“Compared to the general Australian population, chiropractic patients were less likely to smoke, less likely to be obese and more likely to describe their health in positive terms.”
Conclusion:
“In general, chiropractic patients had more positive health and lifestyle characteristics than the Australian population. However, there were a significant proportion of chiropractic patients who did not meet guideline recommendations about lifestyle habits and there is an opportunity for chiropractors to reinforce public health messages with their patients.”