• Navrud IM
• Miller J
• Bjørnli ME
• Feier CH
• Haugse T

• Infant
• Infant Health
• Manipulation, Chiropractic / methods
• Open Access Document
• Parents
• Pediatric Chiropractic / England
• Surveys and Questionnaires

Introduction: Chiropractic is a common parental choice as a therapeutic intervention for numerous pediatric conditions. No studies investigating parent satisfaction with pediatric chiropractic care have been published to date.

Method: All infants aged 0-36 weeks and presenting to a chiropractic teaching clinic on the south coast of England between January 2011 and October 2013 were eligible for inclusion. Parents completed questionnaires, which rated their own and their infant’s characteristics prior to, and at the end of, a course of chiropractic care. Non-parametric tests were used to analyze before and after care scores.

Results: A total of 395 results were collected in this study. Satisfaction scores of 10/10 (“completely satisfied”) were reported by 75.1% (n=295) of the parents. There was a significant improvement in parental distress (Median=5.0 before care, Median=2.0 after care, Z=-13.7, p<.001, r =-.49) and infants’ sleep quality (Median=5.0 before care, Median=3.0 after care, Z=-10.5, p<.001, r =-.38). Satisfaction scores were found to have a small correlation with sleep quality (rs =-.21) after care, as well as a moderate correlation with distress (rs =-.31) and improvement scores (rs =.42), p<.01.

Conclusion: The parents in this study appear to be satisfied with the care their infant received. However, the satisfaction scores and improvement scores are only moderately correlated, which indicates that there are other factors influencing the level of satisfaction.

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