Usefulness of CanMEDS Competencies for Chiropractic Graduate Education in Europe

In 2008, the European Academy of Chiropractic decided to develop a competency-based model for graduate education in Europe. The CanMEDS (Canadian Medical Education Directives for Specialists) framework describes seven competency roles (fields) and key competencies identified as fundamental to all specialist doctors. It was not known how these fields are perceived by chiropractors in Europe. The purpose of this study was to compare perception scores of senior chiropractic as well as medical students with perception scores of licensed chiropractors and to analyze practitioners' remembered confidence in these competency fields.

An anonymous 5-point Likert scale electronic questionnaire was sent to senior students of two chiropractic schools and licensed chiropractors of five European nations. Age and gender differences as well as differences in appraisal of the competencies in respect to importance and remembered confidence were analyzed.

Response rates were low to moderate. Agreement of importance of the seven competencies was not different between chiropractic and medical students as well as licensed chiropractors. Chiropractic students and chiropractors regarded all key competencies as important (averages >/=4.0). The importance versus remembered confidence was consistently judged higher by about 1/2 point on the 5-point scale, significant for all competency fields (p < .001).

The seven competency fields seem to be of the same importance for chiropractic senior students and licensed chiropractors and might be considered as a base for future graduate training in chiropractic. The survey should be replicated with additional samples and further information should be gathered to reflect reality.