The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Patients' preconceptions of acupuncture: a qualitative study exploring the decisions patients make when seeking acupuncture

Patients' preconceptions of acupuncture: a qualitative study exploring the decisions patients make when seeking acupuncture
Patients' preconceptions of acupuncture: a qualitative study exploring the decisions patients make when seeking acupuncture
Background: Like any other form of healthcare, acupuncture takes place in a particular context which can enhance or diminish treatment outcomes (i.e. can produce contextual effects). Patients’ expectations of acupuncture might be an important component of contextual effects, but we know relatively little about the origins and nature of patients’ expectations or wider preconceptions about acupuncture. Our aim was to identify the processes the underpin patients’ decisions to try acupuncture and thus begin to tease out the origins and nature of patients’ preconceptions.

Methods: One-off semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive, varied sample of 35 adults who had tried acupuncture for various conditions. Interviews explored people’s experiences of acupuncture treatment and techniques from framework and inductive thematic analysis were used to relate the data to the research question.

Results: We identified four distinct processes within participants’ accounts of deciding to try acupuncture: establishing a need for treatment, establishing a need for a new treatment, deciding to try acupuncture, and finding an acupuncturist. Family, friends and health care professionals played a role in these processes, providing support, advice, and increasing people’s general familiarity with acupuncture. When they came to their first acupuncture appointment, participants had hopes, concerns, and occasionally concrete expectations as to the nature of acupuncture treatment and its likely effects.

Conclusions: Existing theories of how context influences health outcomes could be expanded to better reflect the psychological components identified here, such as hope, desire, optimism and open-mindedness. Future research on the context of acupuncture should consider these elements of the pre-treatment context in addition to more established components such as expectations. There appears to be a need for accessible (i.e. well-disseminated), credible, and individualised, patient-centred materials that can allay people’s concerns about the nature of acupuncture treatment and shape realistic hopes and expectations.
placebo, context, acupuncture, health care utilisation, complementary medicine, expectations, health knowledge attitudes practice, illness behaviour, qualitative research, patient preference, treatment seeking
1472-6882
1-10
Bishop, Felicity L.
1f5429c5-325f-4ac4-aae3-6ba85d079928
Lewith, George T.
0fc483fa-f17b-47c5-94d9-5c15e65a7625
Bishop, Felicity L.
1f5429c5-325f-4ac4-aae3-6ba85d079928
Lewith, George T.
0fc483fa-f17b-47c5-94d9-5c15e65a7625

Bishop, Felicity L. and Lewith, George T. (2013) Patients' preconceptions of acupuncture: a qualitative study exploring the decisions patients make when seeking acupuncture. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 13 (102), 1-10. (doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-102). (PMID:23664032)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background: Like any other form of healthcare, acupuncture takes place in a particular context which can enhance or diminish treatment outcomes (i.e. can produce contextual effects). Patients’ expectations of acupuncture might be an important component of contextual effects, but we know relatively little about the origins and nature of patients’ expectations or wider preconceptions about acupuncture. Our aim was to identify the processes the underpin patients’ decisions to try acupuncture and thus begin to tease out the origins and nature of patients’ preconceptions.

Methods: One-off semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive, varied sample of 35 adults who had tried acupuncture for various conditions. Interviews explored people’s experiences of acupuncture treatment and techniques from framework and inductive thematic analysis were used to relate the data to the research question.

Results: We identified four distinct processes within participants’ accounts of deciding to try acupuncture: establishing a need for treatment, establishing a need for a new treatment, deciding to try acupuncture, and finding an acupuncturist. Family, friends and health care professionals played a role in these processes, providing support, advice, and increasing people’s general familiarity with acupuncture. When they came to their first acupuncture appointment, participants had hopes, concerns, and occasionally concrete expectations as to the nature of acupuncture treatment and its likely effects.

Conclusions: Existing theories of how context influences health outcomes could be expanded to better reflect the psychological components identified here, such as hope, desire, optimism and open-mindedness. Future research on the context of acupuncture should consider these elements of the pre-treatment context in addition to more established components such as expectations. There appears to be a need for accessible (i.e. well-disseminated), credible, and individualised, patient-centred materials that can allay people’s concerns about the nature of acupuncture treatment and shape realistic hopes and expectations.

Text
Bishop2013 BMC CAM.pdf - Version of Record
Available under License Other.
Download (538kB)

More information

Published date: 13 May 2013
Keywords: placebo, context, acupuncture, health care utilisation, complementary medicine, expectations, health knowledge attitudes practice, illness behaviour, qualitative research, patient preference, treatment seeking
Organisations: Primary Care & Population Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 352321
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/352321
ISSN: 1472-6882
PURE UUID: fa0b9b16-08ee-4ed4-a806-ccf4af5ddde3
ORCID for Felicity L. Bishop: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8737-6662

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 09 May 2013 11:57
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:15

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: George T. Lewith

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×