Introduction
Research highlights many benefits of exercise including improving
general health, wellbeing and specific medical conditions such as stroke
and osteoporosis.1 In musculoskeletal conditions such
as chronic low back pain (LBP) and neck pain, prescribed exercise has
been demonstrated to be moderately effective in decreasing pain and
improving function.2,3 Moreover, prescribing exercise
as part of the management for musculoskeletal conditions is strongly
encouraged in clinical practice guidelines.4-7
Exercise prescription is frequently used by allied health professionals
with the aim of improving physiological well-being, functional ability,
capacity, mobility and pain relief. 8,9 These allied
healthcare professions include physiotherapy 10,
chiropractic 10,11, occupational therapy12, and osteopathy.13 The type of
exercise prescription provided typically includes: activity
recommendations; progressive general exercise; more specific exercise
interventions including stretching; range of motion activities and;
stabilisation exercises to specific body regions.14
Osteopaths are primary contact health professionals who manage
predominantly musculoskeletal complaints.15Orrock16 explored osteopathic practice in Australia in
2009 and found approximately 55% of practitioners often or always
prescribe therapeutic exercise. In 2018, Adams, Sibbritt, Steel, Peng15 reported 74% of Australian osteopaths utilise
exercise prescription, as do 78% of New Zealand osteopaths. Data from
the United Kingdom (UK) shows approximately 23% of osteopaths used
exercise prescription as part of their patient
management.17 In contrast, a cross sectional study of
Australian osteopaths in 2013, reported approximately 6% only of
patient records examined in 2011 and 2012 contained a form of exercise
prescription.18 Several case studies have also
reported osteopaths prescribing exercise as a form of
therapy.19-21 The use of exercise outside the
immediate osteopathy practice environment has also been investigated
with home exercise programmes featuring in various manual therapy
research.22 This is limited higher quality research
about the use of exercise prescription in osteopathy in the literature,
suggesting further research is needed to effectively capture the use of
exercise prescription in osteopathic practice. Our work presents a
secondary data analysis of the Australian osteopathy practice-based
research network 15,23 to profile the characteristics
of osteopaths who use exercise prescription often in patient care.