Methods and Results

We piloted a prospective patient-completed online questionnaire rating (‘none’/‘mild’/‘moderate’/‘severe’/‘don't know’) 14 symptoms (e.g. ‘pain’, ‘headaches’, ‘dizziness’, ‘nausea’, ‘tingling’) at five time-points within one week post-treatment. We recruited patients presenting with a new complaint. Additional data on concomitant symptoms, demographics, and treatment approach were obtained. Using logistic regression we explored associations between reporting an event at 24 hours and age, gender, high-velocity-low-amplitude-thrust and smoking status.

‘Pain’ (82%), ‘stiffness’ (40%) and ‘lack of mobility’ (28%) were the main presenting complaints, and ‘lower back’ (39%), ‘head/neck’ (26%) and ‘upper limb’ (14%) the commonest regions affected. AEs were reported by 83% of patients; ‘pain’ (74%), ‘stiffness’ (58%) and ‘unexpected tiredness’ (10%) were the most frequently reported. These peaked at 24, 48 and 24 hours respectively and were commonly rated as ‘mild’. There was no evidence for age, gender, HVLAT in crude or adjusted models; there were very weak/weak suggestions smoking cessation may be associated with reporting AEs; adjusted OR for ex-smokers versus never-smokers was 3.50 (0.66–18.40; P=0.14); ex-smokers versus smokers was 5.67 (0.85–37.80; P=0.07)).