Marcon Alessandro R, Murdoch Blake, Caulfield Timothy
Health Law Institute, Law Centre, University of Alberta, 91 University Campus, NW, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H5 Canada.
Arch Physiother. 2019 Nov 13;9:11. doi: 10.1186/s40945-019-0064-5. eCollection 2019.
Vertebral subluxation theories are controversial in chiropractic. Divisions are evident in the chiropractic community among those who align their practices to subluxation theories and those who do not. This study investigated how many clinics offering chiropractic in the Canadian province of Alberta promote a theory of subluxation, which health ailments or improvements were linked to subluxation, and whether the subluxation discourse was used to promote chiropractic for particular demographics.
Using the search engine on the Canadian Chiropractic Associations' website, we made a list of all clinics in Alberta. We then used Google searches to obtain a URL for each clinic with a website, totalling 324 URLs for 369 clinics. We then searched on each website for "subluxation" and performed content analysis on the related content.
One hundred twenty-one clinics' websites (33%) presented a theory of vertebral subluxation. The health ailments and improvements discussed in relation to subluxation were wide-ranging. An observed trend was the marketing of chiropractic for children, which was observed on 29 clinic websites (8%).
Based on the controversy surrounding vertebral subluxation, the substantial number of clinic websites aligning their practice with vertebral subluxation should cause concern for regulatory bodies.
脊椎半脱位理论在整脊疗法中存在争议。在整脊疗法界，将其治疗方法与半脱位理论相结合的从业者和不这样做的从业者之间分歧明显。本研究调查了加拿大艾伯塔省有多少提供整脊疗法的诊所推广半脱位理论，哪些健康问题或改善与半脱位相关，以及半脱位相关论述是否被用于针对特定人群推广整脊疗法。
利用加拿大整脊疗法协会网站上的搜索引擎，我们列出了艾伯塔省所有诊所的名单。然后我们通过谷歌搜索为每个有网站的诊所获取一个网址，369家诊所共有324个网址。接着我们在每个网站上搜索“半脱位”，并对相关内容进行内容分析。
121家诊所的网站（33%）介绍了脊椎半脱位理论。与半脱位相关讨论的健康问题和改善范围广泛。一个观察到的趋势是针对儿童推广整脊疗法，在29个诊所网站上观察到这种情况（8%）。
鉴于围绕脊椎半脱位的争议，大量将其业务与脊椎半脱位相结合的诊所网站应引起监管机构的关注。
