Changes in female veterans' neck pain following chiropractic care at a hospital for veterans

Objective To determine if U.S. female veterans had demonstrable improvements in neck pain after chiropractic management at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Methods This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of medical records from female veterans attending a VA chiropractic clinic for neck pain from 2009 to 2015. Paired t-tests were used to compare baseline and discharge numeric rating scale (NRS) and Neck Bournemouth Questionnaire (NBQ) scores with a minimum clinically important difference (MCID) set at a 30% change from baseline. Results Thirty-four veterans met the inclusion criteria and received a mean of 8.8 chiropractic treatments. For NRS, the mean score improvement was 2.7 (95%CI, 1.9–3.5, p <.001). For the NBQ, the mean score improvement was 13.7 (95%CI, 9.9–17.5, p <.001). For the MCID, the average percent improvement was 45% for the NRS and 38% for the NBQ. Conclusion Female veterans with neck pain experienced a statistically and clinically significant reduction in NRS and NBQ scores.