Abstract
M.Tech. (Chiropractic)
Background
There is a lack of available demographic information pertaining to the patients in the chiropractic
clinic of the University of Johannesburg. Further to this, information available is not in a usable and
accessible format.
Aim
The aim of the study was to collect, analyse and understand the demographics of the patients who
attend the chiropractic clinic at the University of Johannesburg. This information was used to analyse
significance within itself as well as to compare it to a previous study done at the same site in 2004, as
well as in foreign countries.
Method
Existing data files of patients from the 1st of January 2016 to the 31st of July 2016 were used. Fields
of interest were extracted and manually captured in an excel spreadsheet. The patient characteristics
captured were: age, gender, occupation, employment status, month of initial consultation, region of
complaint, number of follow-up consultations, cost of 1st treatment, total payments in rands, number
of payments made, labourer versus non-labourer, musculoskeletal versus non-musculoskeletal
complaints, area of residence and body mass index.
Results
From the sample studied, the age range was from 1 to 86 years. The mean age was 41.11 years. The
gender distribution shows that more females visit the clinic than males. The results reflected that no
race or marital status is captured on any of the forms. During February and March the most patients
visited the clinic with a combined percentage of 37.0% while the rest of the months were evenly
distributed from April onwards. The areas of initial complaint were lower back complaints at 35.1%
followed by cervical spine complaints at 19.8%. The data indicated that most patients attended the
clinic at least twice, but 22.4% of patients never returned to the clinic. More than half of the total...