Neck pain afflicts people in different ways; some have pain-based symptoms, while others experience function-based limitations. However, there is scarce information on how the individual patient’s needs are captured by clinicians and transformed into the delivery of treatment approaches for neck pain.
We will examine how the patients’ individual affliction and needs are reflected by treatment goals and whether there are differences or similarities in what is deemed important for both chiropractors and their patients with neck pain. We will also investigate possible associations between treatment goals and clinical treatment patterns.
Addressing patients’ needs is the foundation for selecting treatment approaches, thus clinicians may reach a conflict of interest in various situations. One possible situation is when they are to recruit patients to randomized clinical trials, comparing two or more treatment approaches. A care provider may hesitate to recruit a patient, because they do not believe that the treatments will benefit a particular patient, despite the patient fulfilling the inclusion criteria. We will therefore explore the care providers’ thoughts about such conflicts and how such conflicts may affect the clinician-patient relationship.
Methods
The project will use a multimethod approach. The first two articles will be based on an existing cohort of patients (Clinical course of neck pain in chiropractic patients - Institute of Health and Society) with neck pain in chiropractic care. A total of 1478 patients between the ages of 18-84 years, with acute or persistent neck pain were recruited by 66 chiropractors spread evenly in terms of their geographical distribution across Norway.
The third article will be based on qualitative focus group interviews of chiropractors. Focus group interviews were selected because this method is suited in enabling the chiropractors to express different points of view and allowing us to examine discussions between them, and how they reflect on the questions as a group.
