Table 3

Main categories of 'outcomes' of complex interventions [1]

1. Treatment results connected to body sensation

• Physical effects like physical symptoms diminishing or disappearing (pain, infections, constipation, tension, fatigue, etc.), strengthening of the immune system, etc.

• Mental effects like removal of blockages, getting more energy, better sleep, increased quality of life, better general condition, feeling attended to/safeguarded.

• 'Side gains' like diminishing or disappearance of other physical symptoms than the ones that the user told the treatment provider about.

• Short term responses to the treatment like a change in body odor, increased amount of faeces, change in the odour of the urine, head ache, old symptoms re-appearing.

• Long term responses -

2. Changes in awareness, understanding, insight

• Increased bodily consiousness and bodily awareness like being able to listen to and interpreting body signals.

• Changes in the knowledge and understanding of, and insight into ones disease/symptoms, including putting into words other ways to understand disease than the biomedical understanding.

• Some sort of transformation, understood as an individual, seeking, self integrating, and never ending health-related change process.

• Putting into words spiritual aspects and tools for working with spiritual aspects of life.

• Greater awareness of one self in different social settings.

3. Changes in actions and development of new competences in the role as one's own 'disease manager' – especially important for people with chronic disease

• Develop a larger room of action and find ones own resources (drive).

• Develop tools to handle life situations, including social activities.

• Develop knowledge and tools to prevent symptoms and to promote health.

1. Launsø L: Therapists' effect assumptions and users' own effort-when people with chronic diseases consult conventional and alternative therapists [in Danish with english abstract]. Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom & Samfund [Journal of Research in Disease & Society] 2008, 9: 97–112.

Paterson et al. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2009 9:18   doi:10.1186/1472-6882-9-18