Western States Chiropractic College has received a grant from the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER) to examine how medical and chiropractic treatment protocols affect patient outcomes.
The $58,089 grant will help fund the study, "Low Back Pain: Practice Activities and Patient Outcomes," a collaborative project with the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU).
The study is a cooperative venture with medical physicians and chiropractors in private practice, faculty physicians in the Department of Family Medicine at OHSU, and research faculty at WSCC.
The study will investigate which practice activities are associated with the most successful outcomes for given profiles of low back pain patients, and conversely, which practice activities are associated with the least successful patient outcomes.
The data collection began this August and will continue through March 1993.
Joanne Nyiendo, WSCC director of research and principal investigator of the study, characterized the collaborative project as a "milestone in outcomes research." She added: "The chiropractors involved in the project are looking to demonstrate to the health care community that they are taking an active role in examining their effectiveness. It really is an exceptional and historic research effort."
