While the role of complementary medicine therapies such as chiropractic and osteopathy is yet to be clearly delineated in the Australian context, demand for these services remains high. The attitudes of general practitioners towards chiropractors and osteopaths may have played a part in producing this outcome. However, this view is based on data that were more than 10 years old. Current anecdotal evidence suggests that the previous level of support may be declining in sections of the Australian medical profession. An assessment of the current views of general practitioners towards chiropractors and osteopaths is called for. The results being reported here represent the first stage of this assessment.
This cross-sectional study was designed as a quantitative descriptive study using an anonymous online survey that included closed and open-ended questions with opportunities provided for free text. The target population was Australian general practitioners. Inclusion criteria included current medical registration, membership of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and currently practicing as a general practitioner in Australia. The data being reported here were collected between May and December, 2014.
There were 630 respondents to the online survey during this period representing a response rate of 2.6 %. Results were not uniform for the two professions. More general practitioners believed chiropractic education was not evidence-based compared to osteopathic education (70 % and 50 % respectively) while scope of practice was viewed as similar for both professions. A majority of general practitioners had never referred a patient to either profession (chiropractic: 60 %; osteopathy: 66 %) with approximately two-thirds not interested in learning more about their education (chiropractors: 68 %; osteopaths: 63 %).
This study provides an indication of the current views of Australian general practitioners towards chiropractors and osteopaths. The findings suggest that attitudes may have become less favourable with a growing intolerance towards both professions. If confirmed, this has the potential to impact health service provision. The results from this cross-sectional study suggest that obtaining representative general practitioner views using online surveys is difficult and another approach is needed to supplement or replace the current recruitment strategy.'
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 21. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 31 March 2022.
All research outputs
#2,182,699
of 32,163,693 outputs
Outputs from Chiropractic & Manual Therapies
#92
of 694 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,412
of 327,173 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Chiropractic & Manual Therapies
#3
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,163,693 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 694 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 327,173 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
