Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2006; 11: 24
The purpose of this study was to characterise stuckness, unsticking and unstuckness as outcomes experienced by patients with chronic conditions receiving whole systems of CAM. Previous studies indicate unstuckness as a relevant patient outcome for which there are no measures.
Secondary phenomenological and grounded theory data analytic techniques were used to identify, develop and deeply describe the core concepts of the ‘unsticking/unstuckness’ process of change associated with whole systems treatments. Three data sets from the USA and Canada yielded a total of 140 transcripts from 75 participants.
Conceptual definitions and descriptions were developed. Unsticking was defined as a point in experience or time, a particular instance where shift/change occurred. Unstuckness was described as a phase of detectable and recognisable difference from long-standing or established patterns that are identifiable as a chronic recurring negative way of being-in-the-world, a dynamical rut (stuckness). Descriptors representative of the four domains of human experience (physical, relational, temporal and spatial) were explicated for all three states/processes. Of particular note, the behavioural and linguistic patterning one of stuckness was repetitive and recurrent. The text of unstuckness was oscillatory, a movement-filled languaging that was animated, colourful, vivid and dynamical.
The emergent conceptual model of patient change (outcomes) associated with whole systems of CAM explicates the relationships between stuckness, unsticking and unstuckness as well as factors that modify/mediate that change. These conceptual definitions and descriptors suggest both measurement items and measurement/observational challenges associated with both efficacy and effectiveness studies of whole medical systems.
Funding for this study was received from the Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
