Developing and Evaluating Complementary Therapy Services: Part 2. Examining the Effects of Treatment on Health Status

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effect on patient health status of an outpatient service providing acupuncture, osteopathy, and homeopathy. DESIGN: Pragmatic quasiexperimental design with waiting-list control group. SETTING: A district general hospital in the United Kingdom. SUBJECTS: All patients referred to the service during the study period. OUTCOME MEASURES: The Short Form 36-Item Health Status Survey (SF-36). RESULTS: With the exception of the Physical Functioning scale, statistical differences in scores were found between the treatment and control group on all SF-36 scales. Sensitivity analysis designed to deal with nonresponse supports the robustness of the results. CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence for the effectiveness of an outpatient acupuncture, osteopathy and homeopathy service in terms of benefits to patients' health status.