International Osteopathic Research Network

Background

At the Austin Annual conference in January 2014, a research network was founded as part of the OIA. The first chair of the network was Dr. Dawn Carnes, Director of the National Council for Osteopathic Research UK (NCOR). The aims and objectives of the network are presented below.

Mission Statement

This network will will foster collaboration, coordination, and knowledge exchange to promote rigorous international research efforts on osteopathic principles and practices, and to promote the translation of relevant research into clinical practice.

Objectives

1. To facilitate international communication, cooperation and resource sharing between researchers and clinicians.
2. To ensure that literature on safety, risk, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness in osteopathy and related fields is monitored, and that up-to-date evidence pertaining to these areas are made available via the OIA website.
3. To compile evidence about the scope of practice in osteopathy worldwide.
4. To promote the use of rigorous research methodologies for osteopathic research.
5. To coordinate international resources to synthesize and disseminate information relevant to osteopathy on current topics of interest by the profession.
6. To make evidence-based recommendations to inform osteopathic practice, patients, policy and education.
7. To globally facilitate and promote the collection of patient reported outcomes on manual treatment and to regularly report on the progress being made in this research topic.

Organisations

• Osteopathic International Alliance (OIA)
• American Osteopathic Association (AOA-US)
• Australian Osteopathic Association (AOA-AU)
• Centre for Osteopathic Medicine Collaboration (COME)
• Commission for Osteopathic Research, Practice and Promotion (CORRP)
• European Federation of Osteopaths (EFO)
• European Register for Osteopathic Physicians (EROP)
• Forum for Osteopathic Regulation in Europe (FORE)
• Michigan Osteopathic Association (MOA)
• National Council for Osteopathic Research of the UK (NCOR)
• Osteopathic European Academic Network (OsEAN)
• The Osteopathic Research Centre (ORC)
• Scientific European Federation of Osteopaths (SEFO)

Downloads

Describing Osteopathic practice: Many countries have found value in describing osteopathic practice to understand the needs of the profession and provide data when communicating with others about osteopathy. Examples of questionnaires from OsteoSurvey are given here, in English, French and German, and the National Council for Osteopathic Research has provided its Standardised Data Collection Questionnaire on Patient Information. Please feel free to use these questionnaires, but reference sources where appropriate.

• English Version (PDF)
• German Version (PDF)
• French Version (PDF)
• Standardised Data Collection Questionnaire for Patient Information (PDF)

In addition, the National Council for Osteopathic Research has made available a compendium of abstracts of research studies supporting osteopathic treatment of the cervical and thoracic spine (August 2017).