Use of and attitudes held towards unconventional medicine by patients in adepartment of internal medicine oncology and haematology

A sizeable percentage of patients receiving conventional medical treatment also use unconventional medicine (UM). Surveys indicate that the prevalence of and motivation for the pursuit of the different approaches of UM is sub ject to individual, geographical, cultural and disease-related factors. We were interested in the concurrent use of and attitudes towards UM in patien ts who underwent conventional medical treatment in our oncologically orient ated department of internal medicine in a regionally dominant teaching hosp ital. A representative sample (n = 131) of all inpatients and outpatients r eceiving treatment in the department or in its oncological/haematological o utpatient clinic were asked to participate in a cross-sectional interview s tudy on the use of unconventional therapies. In all, 128 patients (97.7%) a greed to participate in the study, and 65% of these patients were suffering from malignancies. Use of unconventional treatment was reported by 24% of all patients for their current medical problem, and 16% of the remaining pa tients had been thinking of adjunctive use. The use of UM was significantly higher among oncological patients (32%), and among oncological outpatients in particular (50%), than among patients with acute or chronic nonmalignan t diseases. Female patients predominated among the users of UM (71%). UM ma inly look the form of various pharmacological and dietary approaches. Patie nts availing themselves of UM most frequently identified physicians (41%) a s the source of treatment recommendation. Only 18% of the users of UM relie d on these methods as a chance of cure. Use of UM was not generally motivat ed by dissatisfaction with conventional medical care. Only half the users i nformed their hospital physician of their adjunctive use of UM. Nearly 2 ou t of 3 of the users contended that UM had contributed to a mild or distinct improvement in their physical or psychological wellbeing. The use of UM in modern health care systems represents a widespread and intricate phenomeno n, which cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on the objective asse ssment of clinical efficacy. Use of UM may be related more to a disease's u nfavourable attribution than to its medically expected outcome, Coherence w ith individual illness paradigms and perceived efficacy are apparently impo rtant factors in patients' use of UM. These subjective aspects need to be r ecognised in caring patient-doctor communication.