Do Patients Disclose Their Use of Complementary and Integrative Health to Their Providers? A Description of Use and Attitudes

04-09-2018 16:30

Background: Complementary and integrative health (CIH), formerly known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), are practices and products of non-mainstream origin that when used together with conventional medicine is called complementary medicine, and when incorporated into mainstream health care is called integrative health, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Studies have shown that patients tend not to disclose their use of CIH to their providers though little is known about disclosure in urban underserved settings. Purpose: The primary aim of this project was to assess what percentage of the patient population at an urban underserved primary care clinic was using CIH, what percentage had reported their use to physicians, and why patients weren’t telling their provider about their use of CIH. A secondary aim was to describe the types of CIH patients were using. Methods: Design: Cross-sectional survey administered to 389 patients. Setting: Urban university based family medicine clinic. Participants: English-speakers aged eighteen years and older. Measures: Assessed use of CIH, disclosure of use to physicians, and reasons for non-disclosure. Analysis: Descriptive statistics. Results: Overall, the response rate was 50% (n=194). The data showed that 61% (n=119) of patients had used CIH in the past twelve months, but that only 29% (n=41) of respondents had told their health provider about their use. The most commonly reported reason for not disclosing CIH use to the physician was that the physician did not ask (36%, n=30), followed by the respondent was not using CIH at the time of their clinic visit (29%, n=24), and that they did not think their physician needed to know about their CIH use (14%, n=12). The most commonly used CIH included herbals and other non-vitamin supplements (25%, n=69), vitamins and minerals (23%, n=65), massage (13%, n=37), and meditation (11%, n=30). Conclusions: The results of this project show that patients are using CIH, but often do not disclose their use to providers. More research is needed to identify methods for CIH screening and to determine the benefits and harms of such screening. 

Author(s):Annette Li, MD; Michelle Klawans, MPH; Thomas Northrup, PhD; Deepa Iyengar, MD, MPH; Winston Liaw, MD, MPH
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