Centre for Applications of Health Psychology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Building 44 Highfield Campus, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
BMC Complement Altern Med. 2013 May 13;13:102. doi: 10.1186/1472-6882-13-102.
Like any other form of healthcare, acupuncture takes place in a particular context which can enhance or diminish treatment outcomes (i.e. can produce contextual effects). Patients' expectations of acupuncture might be an important component of contextual effects, but we know relatively little about the origins and nature of patients' expectations or wider preconceptions about acupuncture. Our aim was to identify the processes the underpin patients' decisions to try acupuncture and thus begin to tease out the origins and nature of patients' preconceptions.
One-off semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive, varied sample of 35 adults who had tried acupuncture for various conditions. Interviews explored people's experiences of acupuncture treatment and techniques from framework and inductive thematic analysis were used to relate the data to the research question.
We identified four distinct processes within participants' accounts of deciding to try acupuncture: establishing a need for treatment, establishing a need for a new treatment, deciding to try acupuncture, and finding an acupuncturist. Family, friends and health care professionals played a role in these processes, providing support, advice, and increasing people's general familiarity with acupuncture. When they came to their first acupuncture appointment, participants had hopes, concerns, and occasionally concrete expectations as to the nature of acupuncture treatment and its likely effects.
Existing theories of how context influences health outcomes could be expanded to better reflect the psychological components identified here, such as hope, desire, optimism and open-mindedness. Future research on the context of acupuncture should consider these elements of the pre-treatment context in addition to more established components such as expectations. There appears to be a need for accessible (i.e. well-disseminated), credible, and individualised, patient-centred materials that can allay people's concerns about the nature of acupuncture treatment and shape realistic hopes and expectations.
与其他形式的医疗保健一样，针灸发生在特定的环境中，这些环境可以增强或降低治疗效果（即产生环境效应）。患者对针灸的期望可能是环境效应的一个重要组成部分，但我们对患者期望或对针灸更广泛的先入为主的观念的起源和性质知之甚少。我们的目的是确定支撑患者尝试针灸的决策过程，从而开始梳理患者的先入为主观念的起源和性质。
对 35 名因各种疾病而尝试过针灸的成年人进行了一次性半结构式访谈。访谈内容探讨了人们对针灸治疗的体验，并采用框架和归纳主题分析方法将数据与研究问题联系起来。
我们在参与者决定尝试针灸的叙述中确定了四个不同的过程：确定治疗需求、确定新治疗需求、决定尝试针灸以及寻找针灸师。家人、朋友和医疗保健专业人员在这些过程中发挥了作用，提供了支持、建议，并增加了人们对针灸的普遍了解。当他们第一次去看针灸时，参与者对针灸治疗的性质及其可能的效果抱有希望、担忧，有时还有具体的期望。
可以扩展现有的关于如何影响健康结果的环境理论，以更好地反映这里确定的心理因素，如希望、愿望、乐观和开放态度。未来对针灸环境的研究除了考虑到期望等更成熟的因素外，还应考虑到治疗前环境的这些要素。似乎需要有便于理解的（即广泛传播的）、可信的、个性化的、以患者为中心的材料，可以减轻人们对针灸治疗性质的担忧，并塑造现实的希望和期望。
Zotero 插件