knowledge, attitude and practice of therapeutic fasting among naturopathy physicians: across sectional national survey

introduction: fasting is a common ingredient of naturopathic prescription in india. however no studies have been conducted to establish the use, approach of naturopathy physicians towards fasting.the present study, a cross sectional survey was conducted to assess the attitude, use, belief and understanding about therapeutic fasting among the naturopathy physicians in india.methods: a 12 item e-mail based questionnaire was sent among 334 naturopathy physicians, whichwere designed to obtain demographic data, practice characteristics and multiple choice and multipleresponse close-ended questions along with an open-response final question. survey questionnaire datawas analyzed using descriptive statistics via frequency distribution and cross tabulations. results: a convenient sample of total 257 participants was collected. majority of the respondents wereprivate practitioners with an average experience of 5 years. 50% of the total population confirms theuse of fasting in their daily prescription which is mostly for 1-5 days (54%) and for all diseases (38.5%).physicians mostly prescribe short term mono fasting with fruits or juices (42.8%) along with all othermodalities (61.5%) to get desired effect. the end results of fasting therapy was quoted as satisfactory(51.7%) whereas the misconceptions of the patients was a challenge for 1/3 and  most of them find it easy to administer in adults (85%). conclusion:naturopathy physicians use fasting as a first line management in almost all chronic andacute diseases. however there is a need for strengthening the evidence based practice to bestow bettercare.