Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic, particularly ChatGPT's quick adoption and popularity, prompting discussions about its disruptive potential in health care, education, and creative sectors. The author, an early adopter, shares personal insights on leveraging generative AI for creative tasks and communication challenges, while also exploring its role as a tool rather than an author. Opportunities and limitations of integrating generative AI in the massage therapy field are explored, reflecting on the profession's reluctance to embrace technology and the potential efficiency gains. While acknowledging generative AI's creative promise, the importance of ethical and regulated utilization, highlighting data biases and limitations, is underscored. Overall, a balanced and responsible approach to incorporating generative AI into various domains is recommended.

In this editorial, Executive Editor and Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Amanda Baskwill, celebrates 15 years of publications of the IJTMB.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was a time of rapid change and uncertainty, with individual jurisdictions within countries implementing a variety of preventative measures. At the onset of the pandemic, as little was known about how COVID-19 was transmitted, restrictions, such as lockdowns, were implemented to prevent further spread of this virus. In many jurisdictions, massage therapists were deemed as nonessential for a period. This disruption to their livelihood, as a professional group and without autonomy to decide, was unprecedented. This prompted the question as to whether this experience had impacted massage therapists' professional identity. Methods: A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was used and massage therapists in Australia and Canada were recruited to participate. Results from a quantitative questionnaire completed by 649 respondents and from 31 semistructured interviews from a subset of the questionnaire participants were used in the mixed analysis. Results: Massage therapists, impacted by the pandemic, experienced a discord between what it means to be a massage therapist, providing patient-centered care and the public health initiatives implemented during the pandemic. This discord occurred in multiple situations and the type of discord was influenced by a number of factors, including how therapists identified themselves within the workforce (i.e., as a health care provider or a service provider). Conclusion: This study sought to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted massage therapists' professional identity. Massage therapists reported that the pandemic impacted their professional identity through a lack of congruence and discord between their identity-constituting beliefs and what it means to be a massage therapist. The sequela to this discord was therapists experiencing different types of moral distress and or moral injury. Future research is needed to determine the longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on massage therapists.

Peer reviewers are instrumental to the publication of high-quality scholarly manuscripts. However, there are challenges within current models, including how best to recognize (and reward) reviewers for their contribution. The International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork Editorial Team is committed to enhancing the peer-review process in 2023 and invites colleagues to become reviewers.

IntroductionIn both Australia and Canada, healthcare providers considered essential were allowed to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the global pandemic on professional identity included opportunities for role expansion, a focus on ethical principles and social accountability, and professional pride. These results were found only for those considered to be essential and do not likely resonate with those classified as non-essential, such as massage therapists, leaving a gap in understanding. Materials and methodsThis qualitative strand of a sequential explanatory mixed methods study used qualitative description. Individuals who expressed interest were purposefully selected, based on age, gender, type of practice, and experience with the four key phenomena of interest. Data collected through semi-structured interviews was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Member checking enhanced the trustworthiness of the results. ResultsThirty-one (16 Australian and 15 Canadian) participants were interviewed. The main theme described was the pandemic paradox. At some point during the pandemic, most participants were labelled by government agencies as a non-essential service. However, participants reported feeling both essential and non-essential. Two subthemes were also described: factors contributing to creating the paradox and consequences of the paradox. ConclusionA number of pre-existing factors around professional identity, such as patient relationships combined with the conditions instituted to manage the COVID-19 pandemic included designating health care services as essential or non-essential, created the paradox experienced by respondents and the subsequent experience of moral distress. Further research into moral distress experienced by massage therapists is needed.

BackgroundCanada’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults have shifted the focus from considering movement behaviours (i.e., physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep) separately to a 24-h paradigm, which considers how they are integrated. Accordingly, primary care providers (PCPs) have the opportunity to improve their practice to promote all movement behaviours cohesively. However, PCPs have faced barriers to discussing physical activity alone (e.g., time, competing priorities, inadequate training), leading to low frequency of physical activity discussions. Consequently, discussing three movement behaviours may seem challenging. Tools to facilitate primary care discussions about physical activity have been developed and used; however, few have undergone usability testing and none have integrated all movement behaviours. Following a synthesis of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep tools for PCPs, we developed the Whole Day Matters Tool and User Guide that incorporate all movement behaviours. The present study aimed to explore PCPs’ perceptions on the usability, acceptability, and future implementation of the Whole Day Matters Tool and User Guide to improve their relevancy among PCPs.MethodsTwenty-six PCPs were observed and audio–video recorded while using the Tool and User Guide in a think-aloud procedure, then in a near-live encounter with a mock service-user. A debriefing interview using a guide informed by Normalization Process Theory followed. Recordings were transcribed verbatim and analysed using content analysis and a critical friend to enhance rigour.ResultsPCPs valued aspects of the Tool and User Guide including their structure, user-friendliness, visual appeal, and multi-behaviour focus and suggested modifications to improve usability and acceptability. Findings are further discussed in the context of Normalization Process Theory and previous literature.ConclusionsThe Tool and User Guide were revised, including adding plain language, reordering and renaming sections, reducing text, and clarifying instructions. Results also informed the addition of a Preamble and a Handout for adults accessing care (i.e., patients/clients/service-users) to explain the evidence underpinning the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults and support a person-centered approach. These four resources (i.e., Tool, User Guide, Preamble, Handout) have since undergone a consensus building process to arrive at their final versions before being disseminated into primary care practice.

This editorial marks a change in the Edi-torial Board of the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork. The new Executive Editor/Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Amanda Baskwill, shares her gratitude for the outgoing journal leadership, an-nounces new Editorial Board staff, and identifies two initiatives for 2023.

An investigation into the work-related pain (WRP) experienced by Massage Therapists (MTs) in Ontario, Canada was undertaken using voluntary completion of an online questionnaire following broad distribution of requests to take part in this study. Data from respondents were included for analysis if they provided informed consent and were a currently or previously registered MT in the region. With voluntary participation, self-selection respondent bias must be considered in evaluating reported results. Valid questionnaires (n=1103) were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Massage therapists ranged in age from 20 to 73 years, and 85% of respondents were female.The overwhelming majority (85%) of MTs had experienced, or were experiencing, WRP at one or more of five pre-identified, primary locations with the hand/wrist, the most common site (65.5%); followed by the fingers/thumb (60.3%), shoulder (55.0%), lower back (50.1%), and neck (49.2%). Females were significantly more likely to report neck and shoulder pain than males, and were significantly more likely to report WRP at a higher number of body locations, with approximately one in five female MTs reporting WRP at all (5) primary sites. On a 10-point pain-severity scale, females reported significantly higher perceived pain than males.Work-related pain was attributed to the gradual onset of musculoskeletal conditions by 60.3% of respondents, with no other choice of cause being reported by more than 11.1%. There was clear indication of WRP impacting the lives of MTs, with 48% reporting an impact on activities of daily living, 31% reporting a loss of income, 54.6% working in pain, and 30.5% considering changing (or having changed) their profession. Various work adjustments to WRP were reported, including altered biomechanics and greater rest between patient treatments.The reported data suggested that WRP was a limiting factor for MTs’ work capacity.

BackgroundScope of practice enactment is poorly understood in the primary care setting.PurposeThe following research objectives were addressed: (1) to revise and adapt the Actual Scope of Practice (ASCOP) questionnaire for use in the primary care setting, and (2) to determine internal consistency, construct validity, and sensitivity of the modified instrument.MethodsTo address the first objective, a narrative literature review and synthesis and an expert panel review was conducted. To address the second objective, a cross-sectional survey of 178 registered nurses who worked in primary care was conducted.ResultsThe ASCOP, with few modifications, addressed key attributes of nursing scope of practice in the primary care setting. The modified instrument yielded acceptable alpha coefficients ranging from 0.66 to 0.91. Total mean score of 4.8 (SD = .67) suggests that registered nurses within interprofessional primary care teams almost always engage in activities reflected in the modified instrument.ConclusionsThe modified instrument is the first instrument validated to measure nursing scope of practice enactment in the primary care setting. Findings from this study support the use of the modified ASCOP questionnaire as a reliable and valid measure of scope of practice enactment among primary care registered nurses.

Siloxanes are molecules used extensively in commercial, industrial, and biomedical applications. The inclusion of short siloxane chains into phospholipids results in interesting physical properties, including the ability to form low polydispersity unilamellar vesicles. As such, hybrid siloxane phosphocholines (SiPCs) have been examined as a potential platform for the delivery of therapeutic agents. Using small angle X-ray and neutron scattering, vibrating tube densitometry, and differential scanning calorimetry, we studied four hybrid SiPCs bilayers. Lipid volume measurements for the different SiPCs compared well with those previously determined for polyunsaturated PCs. Furthermore, the different SiPC’s membrane thicknesses increased monotonically with temperature and, for the most part, consistent with the behavior observed in unsaturated lipids such as, 1-palmitoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and 1-stearoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, and the branched lipid 1,2-diphytanoyl-sn-glyerco-3-phosphocholine (DPhyPC).