Study of awareness, attitude, and utilization of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among patients visiting urban and rural health centers

Abstract

Worldwide there is a recent increase in the usage of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), which has been defined as a group of diverse medical and healthcare systems, practices and products that are presently not considered to be a part of conventional medicine. The objectives were to assess and to compare the awareness, perspective, and utilization of CAM among urban and rural patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 out-patients attending the urban and rural health centers with a standardized questionnaire. MS Excel and Epi Info were used for data entry and analysis. The awareness of CAM was 71% of urban patients and 63% of rural patients. Despite the awareness of CAM, the urban patient either liked CAM (32%) or apathetic towards CAM (32%) and rural patients mostly apathetic towards CAM (47%). Both areas of patients (41%) used CAM, of which 36% were urban patients and 46% were rural patients. There is a higher proportion of aware patients in rural areas (73%) used CAM when compared to the usage of CAM by aware patients in the urban area (51%). Despite the usage of CAM, both areas of patients preferred Allopathy. In summary, this study demonstrated that most patients are aware of CAM, but patients were mostly apathetic towards CAM. Around half of the patients utilized alternative medicine.