Why Patients Use Alternative Medicine
The use of alternative medicine is growing in the United States—among both patients and doctors (as a highly recommended form of care). The most frequently used alternative medicine disciplines reported are relaxation techniques, chiropractic, and massage. In an attempt to understand the willingness to invest in such care, researchers have proposed three basic premises of why patients will use alternative medicine.
- Dissatisfaction—patients are dissatisfied with conventional medicine due to its ineffectiveness, impersonality, or adverse effects.
- Need for control—patients desire the personal control over their health care, rather than the "authoritarian" nature they perceive in conventional therapies.
- Philosophical alignment—patients see alternative therapies as more aligned with their worldview, values, or beliefs about health and illness.
This study attempted to determine the validity of these criteria, and investigate the possible predictors of a patient's use of alternative healthcare.
The author distributed a questionnaire, and 1035 completed replies were assessed. The questionnaire included questions regarding political views, health beliefs, and views on conventional medicine. Sample questions included, "The last time you had important questions about your health care, and you asked a medical doctor about them, did you understand the answers?" and "The health of my body, mind, and spirit are related, and whoever cares for my health should take that into account (yes/no)."
The patients reported their three most "serious" health problems. Back problems were reported (19.7%) most often, with allergies (16.6%) and sprain/muscle strains (15.7%) following. Overall, forty percent of the respondents used some form of alternative health care. The top four therapies were chiropractic (15.7%), lifestyle diet (8%), exercise/movement (7.2%), and relaxation techniques (6.9%). The most frequently cited health problems for which patients used alternative medicine were chronic pain, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, and addictive problems—the exact problems that conventional medical techniques seem to have trouble treating.
The authors then generalized a list of predictors of patients who use alternative medicine. They write:
"Users tend to be better educated and to hold a philosophical orientation toward health that can be described as holistic. They are more likely to have had some type of transformational experience that has changed their worldview in some significant way, and they to be classified in a value subculture as cultural creative. Users of alternative health care are also more likely to report poorer health status than nonusers."
The desire to keep control of health, negative attitudes/experiences with conventional medicine, and racial or ethnic differences were not predictors of alternative health care use. Philosophical or value systems, however, were strong indicators of use. Having a holistic philosophy of health or a "transformational experience" contributed to the predominance of spiritual factors in health. The authors explain this occurrence as, "they see in these therapeutic systems a greater acknowledgment of the role of nonphysical (mind/spirit) factors in creating health and illness."
In addition, the authors found that majority of their respondents do not use alternative therapies alone—most use it in conjunction with conventional treatments.
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