BACKGROUND Race has been reported to affect the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), but there is very little research on the use of CAM by ethnicity in Korea. This study explores the prevalence of CAM use among ethnic minorities in South Korea. METHODS The design is a descriptive and cross-sectional study. A convenience sample of ethnic minorities was recruited from two publi...

BACKGROUND Some researchers think that patients with higher expectations for CAM therapies experience better outcomes and that enthusiastic providers can enhance treatment outcomes. This is in contrast to evidence suggesting conventional medical providers often reorient patient expectations to better match what providers believe to be realistic. However, there is a paucity of research on CAM pr...

BACKGROUND Many patients with psychological or physical problems are interested in non-medical approaches. The reasons for the growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are not well understood considering that evidence of the effectiveness of conventional therapies is greater than ever before. We have examined data from the Zurich Study to determine trends and predictor...

INTRODUCTION Research into opinions about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has focused on conventional medical practitioners with little exploration of CAM practitioners' views. PURPOSE To survey attitudes and practices of massage therapists toward conventional medicine. RESEARCH DESIGN An anonymous online survey consisting of Likert-type scales, fill-in answers, and multiple-ch...

BACKGROUND Despite the growing popularity of therapeutic massage in the US, little is known about the training or practice characteristics of massage therapists. The objective of this study was to describe these characteristics. METHODS As part of a study of random samples of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners, we interviewed 226 massage therapists licensed in Connecti...

BACKGROUND The present study describes Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) use amongst Italian women transitioning through menopause. Popularity and perceived effectiveness of CAM treatments, use of pharmaceutical medications, characteristics of CAM users, the extent of communication between medical practitioners and women about their use of CAM, and variables associated with CAM use w...

In recent years, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments have increased in popularity. This is especially true for treatments that are related to exercise and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in the treatment of both mental and physical illness. MBIs, such as Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which are derived from an...

Patient expectations regarding complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) interventions have important implications for treatment adherence, attrition and clinical outcome. Little is known, however, about parent and child treatment expectations regarding CAM approaches for pediatric chronic pain problems. The present study examined ratings of the expected benefits of CAM (i.e. hypnosis, massa...

CONTEXT Massage is the most common complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapy used in hospitals in the United States. As such, it is often the first CAM therapy to be integrated with conventional medicine. However, few academic medical centers have a written standard policy to guide this integration. This lack of standard policy may impede institutions from offering massage therapy as...

Natural health products (NHPs) (known as dietary supplements in the United States) are a popular form of self-care, yet many patients do not disclose their use to clinicians. NHP-drug interactions are known to occur and can harm patients and affect the efficacy of conventional treatment. Using the example of an HIV-positive adolescent who had been responding well to antiretroviral therapy but t...