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Health-care sector and complementary medicine: practitioners’ experiences of delivering acupuncture in the public and private sectors

Health-care sector and complementary medicine: practitioners’ experiences of delivering acupuncture in the public and private sectors
Health-care sector and complementary medicine: practitioners’ experiences of delivering acupuncture in the public and private sectors
AIM: The aim was to identify similarities and differences between private practice and the National Health Service (NHS) in practitioners' experiences of delivering acupuncture to treat pain. We wished to identify differences that could affect patients' experiences and inform our understanding of how trials conducted in private clinics relate to NHS clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Acupuncture is commonly used in primary care for lower back pain and is recommended in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's guidelines. Previous studies have identified differences in patients' accounts of receiving acupuncture in the NHS and in the private sector. The major recent UK trial of acupuncture for back pain was conducted in the private sector.

METHODS: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 acupuncturists who had experience of working in the private sector (n = 7), in the NHS (n =3), and in both the sectors (n = 6). The interviews lasted between 24 and 77 min (median=49 min) and explored acupuncturists' experiences of treating patients in pain. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify similarities and differences across private practice and the NHS.

FINDINGS: The perceived effectiveness of acupuncture was described consistently and participants felt they did (or would) deliver acupuncture similarly in NHS and in private practice. In both the sectors, patients sought acupuncture as a last resort and acupuncturist-patient relationships were deemed important. Acupuncture availability differed across sectors: in the NHS it was constrained by Trust policies and in the private sector by patients' financial resources. There were greater opportunities for autonomous practice in the private sector and regulation was important for different reasons in each sector. In general, NHS practitioners had Western-focussed training and also used conventional medical techniques, whereas private practitioners were more likely to have Traditional Chinese training and to practise other complementary therapies in addition to acupuncture. Future studies should examine the impact of these differences on patients' clinical outcomes.
acupuncture, health personnel, private sector, public sector, qualitative research
1463-4236
269-278
Bishop, Felicity L.
1f5429c5-325f-4ac4-aae3-6ba85d079928
Amos, Nicola
2a212dd7-6f04-4e41-b84b-7e42503ad4a6
Yu, He
79ec5223-2fd9-4013-b426-b36b81ef9d45
Lewith, George T.
0fc483fa-f17b-47c5-94d9-5c15e65a7625
Bishop, Felicity L.
1f5429c5-325f-4ac4-aae3-6ba85d079928
Amos, Nicola
2a212dd7-6f04-4e41-b84b-7e42503ad4a6
Yu, He
79ec5223-2fd9-4013-b426-b36b81ef9d45
Lewith, George T.
0fc483fa-f17b-47c5-94d9-5c15e65a7625

Bishop, Felicity L., Amos, Nicola, Yu, He and Lewith, George T. (2012) Health-care sector and complementary medicine: practitioners’ experiences of delivering acupuncture in the public and private sectors. Primary Health Care Research & Development, 13 (3), 269-278. (doi:10.1017/S1463423612000035). (PMID:22317950)

Record type: Article

Abstract

AIM: The aim was to identify similarities and differences between private practice and the National Health Service (NHS) in practitioners' experiences of delivering acupuncture to treat pain. We wished to identify differences that could affect patients' experiences and inform our understanding of how trials conducted in private clinics relate to NHS clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Acupuncture is commonly used in primary care for lower back pain and is recommended in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's guidelines. Previous studies have identified differences in patients' accounts of receiving acupuncture in the NHS and in the private sector. The major recent UK trial of acupuncture for back pain was conducted in the private sector.

METHODS: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 acupuncturists who had experience of working in the private sector (n = 7), in the NHS (n =3), and in both the sectors (n = 6). The interviews lasted between 24 and 77 min (median=49 min) and explored acupuncturists' experiences of treating patients in pain. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify similarities and differences across private practice and the NHS.

FINDINGS: The perceived effectiveness of acupuncture was described consistently and participants felt they did (or would) deliver acupuncture similarly in NHS and in private practice. In both the sectors, patients sought acupuncture as a last resort and acupuncturist-patient relationships were deemed important. Acupuncture availability differed across sectors: in the NHS it was constrained by Trust policies and in the private sector by patients' financial resources. There were greater opportunities for autonomous practice in the private sector and regulation was important for different reasons in each sector. In general, NHS practitioners had Western-focussed training and also used conventional medical techniques, whereas private practitioners were more likely to have Traditional Chinese training and to practise other complementary therapies in addition to acupuncture. Future studies should examine the impact of these differences on patients' clinical outcomes.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 9 February 2012
Published date: July 2012
Keywords: acupuncture, health personnel, private sector, public sector, qualitative research
Organisations: Primary Care & Population Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 301222
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/301222
ISSN: 1463-4236
PURE UUID: 593be152-0b03-4ad8-8426-facdbeebdcc7
ORCID for Felicity L. Bishop: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8737-6662

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Date deposited: 29 Feb 2012 10:12
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:15

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Contributors

Author: Nicola Amos
Author: He Yu
Author: George T. Lewith

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