Patients report significant symptom reduction within a single integrative medicine encounter

Lead by a team of researchers at University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health, a new study finds that patients seeking outpatient integrative health and medicine (IHM) care experience clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms of pain, anxiety, and stress after just one treatment.

The research is published in the journal Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health.

Patients often seek outpatient IHM modalities such as acupuncture, chiropractic, and massage to address their pain, anxiety, and stress. Accordingly, UH Connor Whole Health partners with physicians, providers, and institutes to meet the growing demand for the comprehensive treatment of chronic health conditions and overall well-being. In accordance with prior tenets of whole health, providers at UH Connor Whole Health seek to empower and equip individuals to take charge of their health and well-being while emphasizing patients' goals as the foundation for health care delivery. Part of their care model involves collecting patient-reported outcomes, which offer a more wholistic picture of the effects of treatments on measures related to symptom burden and quality of life.

"While previous studies of IHM delivered in the outpatient setting explored their impact on symptoms over the long term, our study is among the first to assess the immediate treatment effects of IHM modalities in an outpatient setting—and especially at this scale," said Sam Rodgers-Melnick, MPH, MT-BC, Integrative Health Research and Data Specialist for University Hospitals Connor Whole Health and lead author of this study.

The retrospective review examined 7,335 unique IHM encounters among 2,530 adults presenting to outpatient acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, integrative medicine consultation, or osteopathic manipulation treatment over the course of 18 months. Visits were analyzed among encounters in which patients reported moderate-to-severe symptoms (i.e., pre-encounter pain, stress, or anxiety greater than or equal to 4/10 on a numeric rating scale delivered on a paper questionnaire).

The researchers found that for all IHM modalities, patients with moderate-to-severe symptoms reported clinically-meaningful reductions greater than 2 units in their pain (2.50 units), stress (3.22 units), and anxiety (3.50 units) immediately following the encounter.

"As medicine seeks new means of managing acute pain or psychosocial symptoms, this study reinforces the value of offering patients evidence-based IHM modalities to address their immediate needs," said Dr. Françoise Adan, Chief Whole Health and Well-being Officer and Director of UH Connor Whole Health.

Co-author and Research Intern Roshini Srinivasan, MD, RYT-500, shared that that "this work is particularly encouraging to clinicians and patients alike as we understand how to deliver the right IHM intervention, for the right indication, in the right timeframe."