Observational Study of Qigong as a Complementary Self-Care Practice at a Tertiary-Care Pain Management Unit
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Qigong, which can be characterized in many different ways, is offered as a complementary self-care practice at a tertiary-care pain management unit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This report provides a quantitative and qualitative assessment of two groups engaged in qigong practice in this context as part of two Research in Medicine (RIM) projects (2014-15, 2016-17). It includes assessments of pain, mood, quality of life, sleep, and fatigue, considers outcomes in relation to the amount of practice, and considers whether health attitudes would help determine who might benefit from the practice. There were 43 participants (28 ongoing practitioners, 15 new to qigong). The ongoing practice group in RIM2 had significant benefits over time in pain, mood, quality of life, and fatigue in quantitative scores, but changes were not significant in RIM 1. There were no differences in any measures in those new to qigong. Qualitative comments in core and other domains reflected good or better outcomes in 16 subjects in the ongoing group who practiced consistently. In those who practiced less, results were more variable. In most of those new to qigong, the practice was limited and comments indicate minimal changes. Those engaged in qigong have a stronger internal health locus of control than control subjects. Diligent qigong practice provides multiple health benefits for those with chronic pain, and qualitative assessments are essential for documenting these effects. For those new to qigong, factors needed to effectively engage practice need to be explored further to optimize program delivery. The trial is registered with http://www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04279639).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".