Nurses' perspectives on unconventional therapies

Unconventional therapies have become increasingly popular with health care consumers in recent years. As patients seek information and attempt to make decisions about unconventional therapies, they often tom to nurses, asking the nurse's opinion about certain therapies. The nurse 's attitudes and be liefs about unconventional therapies quite likely will influence the respon se to the patient's inquiries. This article represents the findings of interviews with 20 nurses regarding their-perspectives on unconventional therapies. Without exception, all nur ses who were interviewed emphasized that information regarding unconvention al therapies needs to be available readily for both patients and health car e professionals. Other themes identified in the interviews included the fol lowing: Various people use unconventional therapies; people seek unconventi onal therapies for a variety of reasons; communication about uconventional therapies needs to be open, and a place should be found for unconventional therapies. The interviewees saw, a clearly defined role for nurses regardin g unconventional therapies.