Experiences of intervertebral motion palpation in osteopathic practice - A qualitative interview study among Swedish osteopaths

Summary Background Assessment in manual therapy includes quantitative and qualitative procedures, and intervertebral motion palpation (IMP) is one of the core assessment methods in osteopathic practice. The aim of this study was to explore osteopathic practitioners’ experiences of clinical decision-making and IMP as a diagnostic tool for planning and evaluation of osteopathic interventions. Method The study was conducted with semi-structured interviews that included eight informants. Content analysis was used as the analytical procedure. Result In total, three categories emerged from the analysis: strategic decision-making, diagnostic usability of IMP, and treatment applicability of IMP. Conclusion The study indicated that IMP was considered relevant and was given particular importance in cases where IMP findings confirmed clinical information attained from other stages in the diagnostic process as a whole. However, IMP findings were experienced as less important if they were not correlated to other findings.