Results
Seven-hundred and thirty-three Australian osteopaths (73.9%) indicated they use exercise prescription ‘often’ in patient care. There was no statistically significant difference of gender for Australian osteopaths who use exercise prescription often compared to osteopaths who do not use it often (p>0.05) (Table 1). Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were younger in both age and time in practice (p<0.05), and reported a higher number of patient visits and care hours per week (p<0.05) all with small to medium effect sizes. Those Australian osteopaths with a postgraduate qualification, and those who reported being a member of Sports Medicine Australia were also more likely to use exercise prescription often, compared to those who did not report these characteristics (Table 1).
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For patient assessment, Australian osteopaths who use exercise prescription often were more than twice as likely to refer for diagnostic imaging, and six times more likely to use orthopaedic assessment in patient examination, compared to those who do not often use exercise prescription (Table 2). Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were approximately 50% more likely to be co-located with other osteopaths (ORc 1.48) and nearly twice as likely to send referrals to exercise physiologists (ORc 1.90) (Supplementary File 1).
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Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription in patient care were more than eight times as likely to discuss physical activity with their patients, compared to osteopaths who do not often use exercise prescription (Table 3). Medication and occupational health and safety were more than twice as likely to be discussed with patients by osteopaths who reported use of exercise prescription often in patient care (Table 3). Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were almost twice to discuss a range of other clinical management strategies with patients compared to osteopaths who do not often use exercise prescription (Table 3).
Osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were more than twice as likely to treat postural disorders (ORc 2.13) and tendinopathies (ORc 2.28) and, compared to those who do not often use exercise prescription in patient care (Supplementary File 1). Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were three times more likely to treat patients with sport injuries (ORc 3.37), and twice as likely to report treating compensable work injury patients (ORc 2.40) (Supplementary File 1).
Osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were more than twice as likely to use muscle energy technique and dry needling, and three times more likely to more than 3x more likely to use soft tissue technique and trigger point therapy (Table 3). Those osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were also nearly six times more likely to use sports taping compared to colleagues who do not often use exercise prescription (Table 3). However, osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were less likely to use autonomic balancing, balanced ligamentous tension, biodynamics, and Osteopathy in the Cranial Field techniques in patient care (Table 3).
Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription in patient care were nearly twice as likely to indicate expanded practice with respect to prescribing rights (ORc 1.92) and twice as likely to seek expanded referral rights to Sports Medicine specialists (ORc 2.37) (Supplementary File 1).
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Adjusted odds ratios (ORa) for variables that were identified as being statistically significant in the backward binary logistic regression model are described in Table 4. Australian osteopaths who often use exercise prescription were over five times more likely to discuss physical activity with patients, compared to those who do not often use exercise prescription in patient care.
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