Assessing the Impact of OMT on Physician Pain

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Pain

In brief

Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy/Treatments (OMT) are a non-pharmacologic option for treating patients' pain. As the opioid crisis has developed, the requests for OMT have grown in consequence. This has been associated with a recent focus of opioid addiction and overdose death concerns among physicians and patients. However, the physical toll that OMT takes on the physicians providing the treatments has yet to be robustly investigated. Due to the longitudinal nature of chronic pain, OMT delivery becomes a substantial commitment for the physician offering OMT as an option, especially if the intent is to reduce opioid utilization. Many of the patients treated in our clinic have obesity as a co-morbidity to their chronic pain. The size differential between the patient and provider commonly results in multiple techniques being required to treat the patient's somatic dysfunction, which equates to increased exertion by the provider for each new pain patient. Anecdotal reports from the providers have described a decreased motivation to offer OMT to pain patients due to their own soreness from treating the patients they already have on their panel. Furthermore, the physicians are rarely able to take the time away from their practice during business hours to get their own physical health needs addressed in a timely manner. This study looked at the participants' pain levels from offering OMT to their patients and their motivation to offer OMT as a non-pharmacological intervention for treating pain. The participants will have protected time built into their schedule where a board certified doctor of osteopathy will treat them every two weeks. Over the study's course, the participants' pain levels and motivation to offer OMT to their patients was assessed. Objective outcome measures came from the participant's patient panel reports. Changes in the number of OMT office visits they provide, the number of systems they treated and the morphine equivalents they prescribed was tracked. The project's hypothesis followed that purposefully attending to the participant's physical health will improve their motivation to offer OMT, reduce their pain and reduce their opioid prescribing.

Key facts

Study ID
NCT05488158
Run by
Fort Wayne Medical Education Program
People needed
17
Starts
2020-10-22
Expected to finish
2022-06-01
Last updated by the study team
2022-08-04

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

You may not qualify if…

Where it is running

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.