To prevent or to cure: How people use traditional, complementary and alternative medicine

Abstract

To understand the reasons behind the trend of growing use of traditional, complementary and alternative (TCAM) practices we should first reflect on how people use them - to prevent disease/promote health, to treat medical conditions by complementing official medical treatments, or as an alternative to them. A total of N = 583 (Mage = 39.01 years, SDage = 12.10; 74.4% females) participants from Serbia completed an online survey including a list of 24 TCAM practices, grouped into four domains: Alternative Medical Systems (e.g., acupuncture, homeopathy), Natural product-based practices (e.g., herbal extracts/supplements), New Age medicine (e.g., yoga, mindfulness) and Rituals/Customs (e.g., visiting monasteries for health). Participants who indicated using a certain practice in the past year were asked to consider their most recent experience with that practice and choose only one option for how they used it: for preventive purposes/advancing health, at the same time with official medicine therapy, instead of official medicine therapy. Participants also provided information on whether a TCAM practitioner was involved in their last use of any of the TCAM practices and how often, in general, they consult TCAM practitioners. Overall, 63%, 95%CI [60, 65] of participants used TCAM practices for preventive purposes, 31% [29, 34] in parallel with, and 6% [5, 8] as an alternative to official treatments. Of the four domains of TCAM use, New Age medicine and Rituals/Customs were most frequently used for prevention, with 78% [74, 83] and 77% [72, 82], respectively, while Natural product-based practices were used for prevention in 57% [54, 60] and Alternative Medical Systems in 41% [33, 49] of the cases. Alternative use of TCAM practices was the most common in the case of Alternative Medical Systems (21% [14, 28]), while it amounted to no more than 7% of participants for any of the other domains. For 24% of participants, a TCAM practitioner was present during their last TCAM use, 10% reported a practitioner previously prescribing the practice, while 66% of participants reported no practitioner involvement. The results suggest the importance of treating different domains of TCAM practices separately, as they may have different impacts on people’s health behavior. We especially point to the importance of monitoring adherence to alternative medical systems, as they may potentially distract patients from official therapies and thus further compromise their health.