Prevalence, Types and Determinants of Complementary and Alternative Medications among Health Clinic Clients

Abstract

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) covers a wide range of over 100 healing approaches, philosophies and therapeutic modalities that are not provided by conventional medicine. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) covers a wide range of healing approaches not provided by conventional medicine. Objectives: The study was aimed at identifying the prevalence , types and determinants of CAM use,  sources of information about CAM that patients usually depend upon and  reasons of using CAM,

Methods: : A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from random consecutive patients attending  two PHC centres out of ten which was selected randomly in Abha city. All the patients more than 18 years attended to the clinic during two months (March & April) /2014 was included in the study. Results: The present study included 504 patients attending the PHC centres. The mean age of the participants was  47.6 ± 10.2 years. 232(46.0%)  were Males and 272(54.0%) were females. The majority of participants were Saudi ((88.7%)) and Muslims (96.4%). Most of the participants were Illiterate or school level (82.1%) and less than half of them (42.9%) had  enough family income > 10,000 SR. About three fourths of the participants were born in city, most of them were non smokers (81.9%) and about one third of them had self-perceived stress level more than 5. About one third  (36.9%) of participants reported using CAM during the 12 months preceded the study. About half of the participants used CAM due to the personal and family beliefs and because of friends advice ( 63.4% & 46.8% ) respectively. More than half of CAM users used it regularly. 58.6% of CAM users Feeling physically & psychologically better after using it and most of them did not reported any side effects after using CAM.  Conclusions: Use of CAM is prevalent among patients attending  health clinics in Abha City. CAM is commonly used by all age groups. The significant factors found to increase the likelihood of CAM use were Saudi nationality, Illiterate and the place of birth, there were a statistical significant increase  of using CAM among participants born in village. However, factors like age, gender, income, religion, smoking and perceived stress level did not prove to be statistically significant and thus did not affect CAM prevalence significantly. Most families has strong personal belief on CAM Because of the Belief that CAM builds up the body’s own defenses and promotes self-healing and has less side effects.

Key words: Prevalence, Determinants, Complementary,  Alternative Medications, Clients