Chiropractic providers render a substantial amount of care to underserved and rural populations. Health policy planners should consider the full complement of providers available to improve access to care.

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ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to provide new information that describes chiropractors' professional identity relative to their perceived clinical role as specialist or generalist.MethodsA pragmatic, descriptive, cross-sectional survey was performed of randomly sampled state-board licensed chiropractors in the United States during the period 2002–2003 to assess the chiropractors' perceptions of how their chiropractic patients see them, and how they see themselves, as specialist or generalist. For this exploratory study, we anchored the terms “back pain specialist,” “musculoskeletal specialist,” and “primary care generalist” to brief generic reference definitions in our survey instrument.ResultsOf our 2598 valid survey contacts, 1343 chiropractors returned their surveys either partially or fully completed, and a total of 720 chiropractor surveys were used in this study. Most of these chiropractors perceived that their new patients viewed them as “back pain specialists.” Chiropractors believed that their established patients (80%), more so than their new patients (58%), were likely to view them as a primary care generalist. Chiropractors described themselves as both specialist and generalist, and they expressed a greater capability to diagnose, rather than to treat, health disorders that were not musculoskeletal.ConclusionChiropractic physician perceptions as reported in this study suggest that the nature of certain chiropractor-patient relationships may evolve profoundly over time, particularly as patients transition from new to established patients within the chiropractic practice. Understanding the complex nature of chiropractic health care provision may carry implications for advancing evidence-based chiropractic practice and clinical training, enhancing successful and comprehensive management of the complex health concerns of chiropractic patients, fostering beneficial sustained partnerships between chiropractors and their patients, and improving overall delivery of optimal integrative health care.

BackgroundThe "Put Prevention into Practice" campaign of the US Public Health Service (USPHS) was launched with the dissemination of the Clinician's Handbook of Preventive Services that recommended standards of clinical care for various prevention activities, including preventive clinical strategies to reduce the risk of adverse drug events. We explored whether nonprescribing clinicians such as chiropractors may contribute to advancing drug safety initiatives by identifying potential adverse drug events in their chiropractic patients, and by bringing suspected adverse drug events to the attention of the prescribing clinicians.MethodsMail survey of US chiropractors about their detection of potential adverse drug events in their chiropractic patients.ResultsOver half of responding chiropractors (62%) reported having identified a suspected adverse drug event occurring in one of their chiropractic patients. The severity of suspected drug-related events detected ranged from mild to severe.ConclusionsChiropractors or other nonprescribing clinicians may be in a position to detect potential adverse drug events in the community. These detection and reporting mechanisms should be standardized and policies related to clinical case management of suspected adverse drug events occurring in their patients should be developed.

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