ABSTRACT
A glimpse of the state of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) research reveals a lot of activity using orthodox scientific methods but also a growing literature of dissent. Qualitative research also assists in understanding the impact of the context and the process of the intervention. Finally, qualitative research is helpful in developing appropriate outcome measures for CAM interventions. The holistic model of acupuncture treatment, in which ‘the whole being greater than the sum of the parts’, has implications for service provision and for research trial design. Research trials that evaluate the needling technique, isolated from other aspects of process, will interfere with treatment outcomes. The acupuncture study claims to have implications for the design of quantitative research trials. One of the most productive ways of doing research is to combine qualitative and quantitative methods. The research described earlier in this chapter takes a very firm orthodox scientific paradigm as its starting point.
