Chiropractic students in Denmark and their adherence to chiropractic conservatism: A cross-sectional study
Abstract Background The chiropractic profession is split between those practicing evidence-informed and those whose practice is honed by vitalism. The latter has been coined ‘chiropractic conservatism’. Concerningly, this behavior is also present in students, as a recent survey conducted on students from a European private chiropractic college showed that chiropractic conservatism was the norm. This was also present in two Australian university-based institutions not associated to a medial faculty. In Denmark, the chiropractic program is university-based and firmly embedded in a medical faculty. We were curious if the same levels of conservatism were present in this setup. The objectives of this study were to establish the level of conservatism in Danish chiropractic students, to investigate if this was linked to year of study, and to compare the results from previous studies on the university and non-university-based institutions. Methods A cross-sectional survey on 122 (73%) 3rd to 5th year chiropractic students attending the University of Southern Denmark was conducted. Information about the project was sent out on October 1st, 2019. Participants were provided with a questionnaire consisting of 10 items concerning chiropractic conservatism. All ten answers were dichotomized into appropriate/inappropriate and summed up. This score was used in a linear regression to determine the association with academic year of study. The level of conservatism was thereafter categorized into four groups (group 1 indicating low levels of conservatism and group 4 indicating high levels of conservatism). These results were compared systematically to those of the previous studies. Results In general, the Danish chiropractic students had low conservatism scores, and this decreased with increased year of study. Seventy percent of the students were placed in the two lowest conservative groups . The Danish students answered consistently, on 3 out of 5 items, with the other university-based programs, both agreeing that adjustments can make the body function at 100% and that they can improve the health of infants. An inverse relationship was observed with the private college, whose students were primarily placed in the highest conservatism group. Conclusions The Danish chiropractic students did not show the same level of conservatism as the private college, but were more comparable to the other university-based programs. Despite a favorable environment, some students were still linked with some conservative thinking, but this did decrease with increasing year of study.