Use of and attitudes about alternative and complementary therapies among outpatients and physicians at a municipal hospital.

Objectives: To survey outpatients and physicians about their use of, knowledge of, and interest in alternative therapies.

Design: Anonymous self-administered survey.

Settings/location: Outpatient clinics at a major municipal medical center.

Subjects: Outpatients visiting clinics and staff physicians.

Interventions: Patient survey about overall use of 7 categories and 19 types of alternative therapies, and their desire to have specific therapies offered at the institution. Survey to physicians about whether their patients used the same categories and types of alternative therapies, whether they provided or recommended their use, and their interest in having them available at the institution.

Outcome Measures: Frequency of use of different alternative therapies by gender and race. Frequency of patient use of alternative therapies according to their physicians and frequency of physicians who provide or recommend alternative therapies.

Results: A total of 567 outpatients completed questionnaires during the survey week. When given a list of alternative therapies, 85% of patients acknowledged use of one or more alternative therapies. When Diet/Nutrition was excluded, 42% reported use of alternative therapies. No differences in overall use were seen by age, sex, or race; but when Diet/Nutrition was excluded, women were more likely to use alternative therapies, and use of Manual Healing and Herbal Medicine differed by race. Of the 85 responding physicians, 86% reported that their ambulatory patients used alternative therapies. Similar proportions (35%-38%) of patients and physicians wanted Manual Healing and Mind/Body Control therapies to be available.

Conclusions: Frequency of use of alternative therapies was high, and similar according to patients and physicians. Overall use did not differ by gender and race, except when Diet/Nutrition was excluded. Patients and physicians had similar interests in having alternative therapies provided, and both were hampered by lack of information about many therapies.