How Much Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Is Enough? Should Chiropractic Colleges Focus on Efficacy Training in Screening for Family Violence?

Abstract

Introduction:Although family violence has been identified as a major public health issue, it has received little attention in the chiropractic literature. Accordingly, this article provides a conceptual overview on family violence, discusses the role of chiropractors in its detection, and raises several issues germane to chiropractic education that deserve further attention in future chiropractic publications. Methods: A selective review of the empirical literature on family violence was conducted with a focus on issues relevant to chiropractic training and professional identity. Results: Extrapolating from the research, several models for medical training and continuing education have been proposed that emphasize a multidisciplinary, developmental approach to infusing knowledge, skill building, and mentored practice experiences into professional education experiences. Conclusion: As chiropractors become more mainstream portal-of-entry providers, there is a clear need to translate the didactics of family violence into the clinical setting. Clinical education may provide students the opportunity to master basic competencies for managing challenging family violence problems. The clinical environment may be appropriate for inculcating skills commensurate with those of other primary care providers. Yet, the extent to which training priorities and approaches extrapolated from other health care disciplines should be accepted wholesale by the chiropractic profession merits further discussion, including issues around the professional identity of chiropractic, the impact of accreditation standards and practice guidelines on actual professional practice behaviors, and the possible limits and unintended consequences associated with expanding the traditional chiropractic scope of practice from a specialty to a primary care profession.

Consensus Process to Develop a Best-Practice Document on the Role of Chiropractic Care in Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Wellness

“…The literature search terms were limited and may have missed additional relevant or more recently published articles in the area of health promotion, disease prevention, and wellness. [78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] There was meager evidence in the literature to inform the panel about whether periodic screenings and manipulation of asymptomatic joint and muscle dysfunction can reduce the recurrence of future episodes of musculoskeletal pain or slow down the degenerative process. Chiropractic care for prevention of injury is a theory that should be investigated in future longitudinal observational research and cost-effectiveness studies to determine the preventive benefits of such care.…”

Chiropractic and Public Health: Current State and Future Vision

“…These include family violence, immunization, and smoking cessation efforts in education. [90][91][92] As with all health care professions, patient safety issues and adverse effects are of concern. Recent scholarly efforts look at these issues related to chiropractic care (eg, cervical artery dissections, radiological guidelines, identifying pathogens on treatment tables).…”

Familiarity With and Advocacy of Healthy People 2010 Goals by Mississippi Chiropractic Association Members

“…Students, faculty, and staff at 1 chiropractic college campus (92% response) strongly support the notion that chiropractors have a responsibility to role model healthy behaviors and to educate their patients regarding healthy behaviors. 11 Other research efforts include guidelines and improvements in geriatrics, 12,13 pediatrics, 14 wellness concepts, 15 community health, 16 public health education, 17 preventive health services counseling at chiropractic colleges, 14 community-based health promotion, 18 injury prevention, 19 and use of Network Spinal Analysis for improving health behaviors. 20 A nutrition and youth soccer intervention was a recent example of chiropractic practicebased community-wide health promotion in Mississippi.…”