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NURSES, PHYSIOTHERAPISTS AND SANITARY ENGINEERS ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS ABOUT COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Aleksandar Racz, I.Crnkovic, I. Brumini

Abstract

In Croatia there is a wide range of CAM therapies outside of the conventional, allopathic medicine and their usage has been exponentially increasing over the previous decades. However, there are only few, if any, relevant national surveys about the attitudes and beliefs of health care professionals about CAM in Croatia. AIM: The basic objective of the research was to identify the attitudes and beliefs about CAM among nurses, physiotherapists and sanitary engineers that were enrolled at the University of Applied Health Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia. SAMPLE AND METHODS: The study was conducted on a sample of 569 participants, representing approximately one fifth of the total number of students enrolled in the academic year 2017/2018. RESULTS: As many as 52.5%of the participants think that clinical medicine should integrate the best of CAM and classical medicine. The majority of the participants (76.6%) support the idea that there should be evidence of the use of CAM therapy in medical records, and 81.9% of health professionals think that the patient should inform his medical team about the use of CAM therapy. There are a number of reasons why people use CAM therapies but for the 4/5 of them (79.9%) the main reason is that patients seek help in CAM because they have confidence that CAM will help where classical medicine can no longer help. Furthermore, 82.0% of the participants support the statement that in the stages of illness patients are grasping for every hope regardless of the lack of evidence of effectiveness. CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that in spite of the fact that most CAM methods have not been scientifically researched or clinically tested and even more that many studies in CAM therapies have flaws, participants have shown very high positive attitudes toward CAM, as well as positive expectations and hopes regarding the inclusion of CAM into conventional medicine under supervision and controlled through medical records.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2019V/2.1/S13.055

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