Abstract
Background: Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions and the pain associated with
them can be described as the main cause of disability in the modern world. As
such, it is vital that healthcare workers have a good basic understanding of
MSK concepts. Chiropractors are professionals who are trained to be skilled
in the management of MSK conditions, hence, MSK anatomy is a critical area
of knowledge within chiropractic education. In the past, there has been a lack
of published research on the MSK competency of chiropractors and
chiropractic students, especially those in South Africa. Consequently, this
study is necessary to begin determining this competency within South African
chiropractic students. The primary aim of this research is to determine the MSK
competency of Master of Health Science Chiropractic students at the
University of Johannesburg (UJ). This was conducted in order to determine
whether chiropractic students demonstrate sufficient competency to accurately
diagnose and treat MSK conditions.
Methods: This research study made use of an anonymous and voluntary
online examination that was be completed by first- and second-year master’s
chiropractic students in order to determine their cognitive competence of the
MSK system. This study utilised the Freedman and Bernstein Basic
Competency Examination on the MSK system. It should, however, be noted
that five of the questions from this examination will be omitted, as Humphreys,
Sulkowski, McIntyre, Kasiban and Patrick (2007) found that these questions
lacked relevance to the chiropractic scope of practice when they performed
their study.
Results: The IBM SPSSÒ package (version 15) was used to analyse the raw
data that was collected. The survey obtained a 90% (n=45) response rate from
the MHSc students of 2022: 46.7% (n=21) were first-year students and 53.3% (n=24) were second-year students; 26.7% (n=12) of the participants were male
and 73.3% (n=33) were female; 77.8% (n=35) of the participants fell into the
22-25 year old age group, 17.8% (n=8) were in the 26-30 year old group and
4.4% (n=2) participants were in the 31 – 40 year old age group; and 71.1%
(n=32) of the participants were White, 20% (n=9) of the participants were
Indian/Asian and 4.4% (n=2) of the participants were Black or Coloured in
ethnicity. The Shapiro-Wilk statistical testing was used to test for normality
due to the group size of this study being smaller the 50. All scores were less
than 0.05 and, therefore, non-parametric testing was used in the form of the
Mann-Whitney test. The minimum score achieved by the participants was
11.50 (57.50%) and the maximum score achieved was 20.00 (100.00%). The
participants of this study achieved a mean score of 79.58% (15.9 out of a
possible 20) for the competency examination. This is higher than the mean
passing score that was determined by Freedman and Bernstein, which was
73.1% (Freedman and Bernstein, 1998). A score of 14.62 is required to
achieve the mean passing score of 73.1%. Of the 45 participants that took part
in this study, 30 participants (66.67%) achieved a score of 73.1% or higher.
Conclusion: MHSc chiropractic students have demonstrated a commendable
level of competency in the field of MSK medicine. This is supported by the fact
that the students that participated in this study not only met, but surpassed the
pass mark (73.1%) that was determined by Freedman and Bernstein for their
basic competency examination. Furthermore, it can be concluded that
chiropractic students performed better than comparable medical disciplines in
terms of MSK knowledge.