Chiropractic students’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to joining a professional association”

Abstract

BackgroundIn Australia, about 1 in 3 chiropractors choose not to belong to either of the two professional associations and this is considerably lower compared to other health professional organisations in this country. The reasons for this remain unknown. We sought to explore possible reasons by asking chiropractic students their perceptions of barriers and facilitators to joining a professional association. However, we were unable to identify validated survey instruments that could be used to obtain information about reasons for joining health professional associations.AimTherefore, the objectives of this study were to: 1) develop a survey instrument that captures information about what influences chiropractic students in joining professional association; and 2) identify factors that promote association membership among chiropractic students.MethodsA literature review was undertaken to identify known determinants of professional association membership and were used to construct a preliminary survey instrument, which comprised 47 items. Six fourth-year chiropractic students assessed the preliminary survey instrument’s content validity. Principal components analysis was used to establish the structure of the scales. Cronbach’s alpha was derived to determine whether all items in each scale tapped a discrete construct. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between the scale scores and having joined a chiropractic professional association.ResultsIn March 2019, 348 chiropractic students from Murdoch University (71.0%) responded to a voluntary, anonymous questionnaire. Principal components analysis resulted in the retention of 21 items that strongly loaded onto 6 factors. Internal consistency was found to be adequate. The results of the logistic regression analysis demonstrated that only “development of the profession” was significantly associated with have joined a professional chiropractic association (p = 0.049, OR = 2.22; 95% CI = 1.26–3.40).ConclusionChiropractic organisations can probably most effectively increase membership numbers through raising awareness of their contribution to the development of the profession.

Skills, attitudes and uptake of evidence-based practice: a cross-sectional study of chiropractors in the Swedish Chiropractic Association

“…The European Chiropractors’ Union has recently attempted such communication at the European Parliament level [ 54 ]. Somewhat discouraging though is findings from recent research showing that chiropractors may be less willing to join a professional association than other health professions; this highlights the need for chiropractic organisations to be more active in promoting how they support and impact the development of the chiropractic workforce [ 55 ].…”

Factors influencing Australian chiropractors who choose not to join national professional associations: a qualitative study

“…The chiropractors in this study did not share the concern of being so busy with work and family that they were time poor and consequently chose not to belong [22]. Shared factors that were viewed as bene ts by the interviewed chiropractors in this study, Australian chiropractic students, and Welsh chiropractors were well priced membership while promoting the public and professional image of chiropractic, promoting research, providing workplace support and access to continuing professional development activities [9,10]. Continuing education and networking has also been found to be important to other health professionals [18,23].…”

“…Interestingly Australian chiropractic students, whose membership is free to PAs, did not see the image of the profession or PA as a barrier or facilitator to membership [10]. Perhaps this may be explained by the student population not having been exposed to the nancial reality of day-to-day practice and persistent negative community opinions of chiropractic.…”

“…This was a qualitative descriptive study utilising in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, at a time suitable to the participant via Skype / Zoom and telephone due to COVID-19 restrictions on face-to-face interviews. The interview questions were adapted from recent research that identi ed a number of barriers and facilitators to students considering chiropractic professional membership [9,10]. The full interview script (aide de memoir) is included in Additional le 1.…”

“…Only two previous studies have examined determinants of professional chiropractic association membership, one in Wales [9] and the other in Australian chiropractic students [10]. These studies have identi ed both inhibitors and facilitators to joining a PA. For chiropractic students, the in uential factors on deciding whether or not to join a PA related to developing the profession, developing personal practice, the reputation of the PA and intra-professional communication [10]. Dispositional factors, such as personal values and opportunities for networking were also important.…”