Complementary therapies: have they become accepted in general practice?

Objectives: To describe Victorian general practitioners' attitudes towards and use of a range of complementary therapies, Design: A self-administered postal survey sent to a random sample of 800 ge neral practitioners (GPs) in Victoria in July 1997. Participants: 488 GPs (response rate, 64%). Main outcome measures: GPs' knowledge; opinions about harmfulness and effec tiveness; appropriateness for GPs to practise; perceived patient demand; ne ed for undergraduate education; referral rates to complementary practitione rs; and training in and practice of each therapy, Results: Acupuncture, hypnosis and meditation are well accepted by the surv eyed GPs, as over 80% have referred patients to practitioners of these ther apies and nearly half have considered using them. General practitioners hav e trained in various therapies - meditation (34%), acupuncture (23%), vitam in and mineral therapy (23%), hypnosis (20%), herbal medicine (12%), chirop ractic (8%), naturopathy (6%), homoeopathy (5%), spiritual healing (5%), os teopathy (4%), aromatherapy (4%), and reflexology (2%). A quarter to a thir d were interested in training in chiropractic, herbal medicine, naturopathy and vitamin and mineral therapy. General practitioners appear to underesti mate their patients' use of complementary therapies. Conclusions: There is evidence in Australia of widespread acceptance of acu puncture, meditation, hypnosis and chiropractic by GPs and lesser acceptanc e of the other therapies. These findings generate an urgent need for eviden ce of these therapies' effectiveness.