Grazia, Albert. An evaluation of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) grants and funding program. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3TH8PBH
DescriptionThis dissertation is a program evaluation to investigate the Grants and funding program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), as it specifically relates to research in massage therapy. This paper evaluated whether the funding program, relative to massage therapy, effectively supported the stated mission of NCCAM, to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of massage therapy and its role in improving health care. NCCAM’s funding areas of special interest, involving the public’s usage, as well as pain and inflammatory conditions, were also evaluated. Massage research study designs were assessed for overall quality by using the JADAD scale. Results showed seventeen out of thirty-two studies (53%) scored 3, which is considered good quality. To assess both efficacy and safety, a PICO Table consisting of NIH funded massage research clinical trials was included. The analysis showed that 27 out of 28 clinical trials showed significantly positive results for the groups receiving the massage therapy intervention. No adverse effects were reported as a result of any of these studies. It appears that massage therapy is safe for the conditions that were investigated and with the protocols used in the clinical trials when performed by certified or licensed massage therapists. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to compare percentages of funding of topics with percentages of the public’s reported reasons for their usage of massage. Based in this assessment, no correlation between the public’s usage and NIH funding of research topics was found. However, funding in massage topics for pain and inflammatory conditions was over 50% of the annual funding in 9 out of the 13 years reviewed. It was concluded that the NCCAM funding program is consistent with its mission statement and funding areas of special interest.