The development of contemporary chiropractic education in Denmark: an exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to capture the experience of key stakeholders regarding the development, structure, and influence of the local education program on the Danish chiropractic profession.

A gatekeeper was initially interviewed, after which a snowball sampling approach led to a further 11 respondents being identified. Semistructured interviews were conducted, and computer-assisted thematic analysis was used to interpret data.

Seven themes emerged. Two described pertinent historical aspects during the development of the local education, 4 related to status quo issues around education at the University of Southern Denmark, and 1 explored perceived health care integration benefits attributable to the chosen model of education.

The Danish chiropractic profession's incentive to raise its legitimacy lay in the access it stood to gain, through a local education, to state-subsidized copayments. "Stakeholder behavior," "boundary work," and "countervailing powers" underscore this example of professionalization; and evidence for secondary legitimization appears evident in the third-party influences, peer association legitimacy, and disciplinary endorsement observed. Our study suggests that secondary legitimacy may serve the interests of an emergent profession in its bid to claim a position of dominance, in this instance, chiropractic.