CHOOSING ALTERNATIVE THERAPY - AN EXPLORATORY-STUDY OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND MOTIVES OF PATIENTS RESIDENT IN SYDNEY

Disenchantment with allopathic medicine has coincided with an upsurge in recent years in Australians consulting alternative therapists about their health care needs. Two major government studies have provided v aluable independent evidence about the sociodemographic characteristic s of users of alternative therapies and about their attitudes to healt h and medical care. However, the focus of these inquiries was predomin antly on the users of chiropractic and osteopathy, just two of the mod alities which make up this diverse field. To investigate, among other things, who consults alternative practitioners, how they come to choos e a particular therapist, and whether, and on what basis, they have ab andoned cosmopolitan medical care or use a combination of alternative and allopathic medicine, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 289 patients of eight Sydney practices providing a range of alternative mo dalities. Findings indicate that far from being representative of the Australian community, the majority of our sample population came from a very select group, with a narrow range of socioeconomic backgrounds. The health risk behaviour of those surveyed was also significantly di fferent from that exhibited by the population in general.