'Doctors can't help much': the search for an alternative

Background. At a time of great scientific advance and a culture of evidence -based health care, there is increasing referral to and use of complementar y therapies. An understanding of the meaning behind this paradox may useful ly inform our orthodox practice. Aim. To investigate why people attend complementary practitioners. Method. Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 20 people drawn from a study population of 176 people currently attending a variety of complemen tary practitioners in South West England. Data were collected and analysed using a constant comparative method. Results. Most people had a chronic health problem, had already consulted th eir general practitioner (GP), and had their GP's approval for seeking comp lementary therapy. Many people were attending a complementary therapist for the first time and most were fee-paying patients. People's reasons for con sulting were encompassed by three categories. The commonest of these is 'Do ctors can't help much: and the of her two are 'Doctors are hopeless' and 'I t (orthodox medicine) may work but it's not acceptable.' The hopes and aims for treatment included long-term or shortterm symptom relief, improvement in function, better understanding, advice on self-help or other therapies, gaining control, and improving their ability to cope with their illness. So me people's main aim was to avoid or reduce orthodox steroid-based medicati on. Conclusion. These people were seeking out holistic and patient-centred heal th care, and were making their own judgements about what constituted an acc eptable level of risk from medication use. The advances of scientific medic ine and expert evidence-based advice were not always relevant to them.