Relationship between techniques taught and practice behavior: education and clinical correlation.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between the time spent teaching various manual procedures in each of two different chiropractic colleges and the actual practice of those procedures in the graduate clinical environment of the doctors involved. METHODS: A simple questionnaire instrument was constructed to assess the frequency of use of 9 different manual evaluation treatment procedures. All graduates from the two chiropractic colleges in the state of Texas who obtained their license between 1988 and 1993 were polled. Reliability was studied by polling the first 30 qualified respondents twice and was found to be acceptable. The college curriculum with respect to the techniques studied was compared with the perceived use of the various techniques by the graduates surveyed. RESULTS: A total of 224 of 322 (70%) surveys were returned for consideration. Of these, 197 met all of the inclusion/exclusion criteria and were assessed as part of the sample. Significant differences were found between the colleges with respect to perceived practitioner use of Activator (chi 2 = 14.247, P = .004), Thompson technique (chi 2 = 57.702, P = .000), Gonstead (chi 2 = 52.173, P = .000), and flexion-distraction (chi 2 = 29.424, P = .000). CONCLUSION: Data from this research provide evidence that a relationship does exist between manual procedures taught in two different chiropractic colleges and the perceived use of those procedures in actual clinical practice. Implications of this relationship are discussed.