Patient Satisfaction with Acupuncture: Report of a survey of 1000 patients

Claire M. Cassidy, Paradigms Found Consulting, Bethesda, MD.

In 1999, the Maryland Acupuncture Society sponsored a survey of patient satisfaction in the clinics of its members. Claire M. Cassidy, PhD and Martha S. Lappin, PhD designed the mixed qualitative-quantitative survey questionnaire and an office-based data collection format that yielded responses from 1003 patients of 95 acupuncturists. Data was collected on demographics of patients, cost of care, complaints brought for care, response to care, healthcare values, and perception of care, cost, and practitioner. Comparative data was gathered by asking patients to compare their acupuncture experiences with those with one other medical practitioner, type chosen by the respondent. Qualitative data was gathered by asking respondents to "tell your story." Important features of the results include patient commentaries on insurance preferences, most valued factors in creating high levels of satisfaction with Chinese medical care, and surprising data on who these patients consider to be their primary health care provider. The questionnaire design has entered a standardization phase of development; the authors are seeking venues in which to test it more widely.

Consistency of diagnostic assessment of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners

Sherman KJ^1,2, Hogeboom CH^1,3, Cherkin DC^4,5

1Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Seattle, WA
²Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington
³Department of Biostatistics, UCSF
⁴Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, WA
⁵Departments of Family Medicine and Health Services, University of Washington

As part of a grant developing methods for studying acupuncture as a treatment for chronic low back pain, we assessed the degree of agreement between practitioners evaluating the same patients from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Using a Latin square design, six acupuncturists evaluated the same six patients in the course of a single day (total of 36 evaluations). Patients were not treated. Practitioners were permitted to perform their typical diagnostic evaluation, but were specifically asked whether certain diagnoses were present (e.g. Qi Stagnation, Kidney Deficiency), whether they used the Eight Principles in their assessment and what channels were stagnant. Every patient was given a diagnosis of Qi and/or Blood Stagnation with some type of Kidney Deficiency by a majority of practitioners. However, consistency across acupuncturists about diagnostic details was poor. Use of Eight Principles diagnosis was more dependent on practitioner than on patient. Because patients tended to have the same broad diagnoses and subtypes of diagnoses could not be distinguished, the use of individualized diagnoses (and correspondingly customized treatments) is not likely to be important for acupuncture studies of chronic back pain.