Exploring Patient and Physician Experiences of Medical Acupuncture

The proposed qualitative inquiry seeks to understand medical acupuncture from both the physician and the patient perspective. Interviewees will be asked to describe their experiences from the point of diagnosis or training up until the present day to capture the nature of their experiences across the treatment trajectory. Sample size for the qualitative data collection will be based on saturation of themes (thematic findings, e.g., patient talk is limited by family knowledge or physician-patient communication is limited by time constraints in the clinical setting), meaning investigators will continue recruitment until they are no longer hearing new experiences from participants. Saturation will be kept separate by groups (i.e., saturation of themes must be met within the group of patients separately from providers). Investigators will conduct preliminary data analysis after each 10 interviews to determine when saturation is reached. Recruitment numbers here are anticipated maximum numbers needed to reach saturation. Investigators plan to recruit and sample provider and patient populations in the following way. Investigators will group physicians by the physician's training so that we are sensitive to the fact that helpful patient-physician interaction approaches may differ across the patient's lifespan or with patient or physician experience with acupuncture. Audio recordings from each interview will be professionally transcribed and analysis will be concurrent with data collection to ensure reliability and validity of findings. Investigators will review transcripts as data are collected to identify emergent themes and ensure thematic saturation.