This article presents an analytical review of literature that examines women’s practice and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). To interrogate this body of literature, I draw on new social movement scholarship and a feminist understanding of the notion of “the personal is politica”’. Although women’s prominence in CAM is consistently noted, our understanding of the relationship...

BACKGROUND The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widespread and high utilization rates are associated with people who have chronic conditions like hypertension which management requires adherence to conventional treatment. Often however, the use of alternative medicines has been linked to negative health outcomes. The purpose of the study therefore was to evaluate the patte...

Comparative Prevalence of Complementary andAlternativeMedicine Use AmongOutpatients in Dermatology and Primary Care Clinics Previous studies suggest that people with skin diseases use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)1,2; however, it is not known whether CAM was used specifically to treat their skin disease. We conducted a survey to determine differences in CAM use for skin diseases ...

OBJECTIVES To update previous systematic reviews of 12-month prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by general populations; to explore trends in CAM use by national populations; to develop and apply a brief tool for assessing methodological quality of published CAM-use prevalence surveys. DESIGN Nine databases were searched for published studies from 1998 onwards. Stud...

In a 2006 article in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, Herman et al argued cogently that adopting a health services research (HSR) paradigm would help resolve some of the issues that the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) community and those researching CAM face with randomized controlled trials. Although the article makes a strong case for HSR and CAM, it fails to discuss...

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a phrase used to describe additional health care methods such as mind/body practices and natural products not regarded as treatments by conventional medicine. The use of CAM in children with common neurologic diseases is more frequent than its use in healthy children (24%-78% vs. 12%). However, less than half of patients report such use to their p...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we explored parents' perspectives toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by their children and its impact on parent-doctor and doctor-CAM-practitioner communication. PATIENTS AND METHODS We designed a 2-arm study of parents who approached either conventional primary care or CAM clinics with their children to consult physicians or practitioners regardi...

Within the last decade there has been a dramatic increase in the sale and use of herbal supplements and food supplements by Western populations and within the UK. This increased usage has coincided with a resurgence of interest in nutritional therapy and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, such as herbal medicine, naturopathy and homeopathy, in which therapists may provide d...

BACKGROUND Over the recent decades complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use within and outside of the public health care system in Norway has increased. The aim of this study is to describe to what extent CAM is offered in Norwegian hospitals in 2013 and investigate possible changes since 2008. METHODS In January 2013 a one-page questionnaire was sent to the medical director of all in...

BACKGROUND Within the intercultural milieu of medical pluralism, a nexus of worldviews espousing distinct explanatory models of illness, our research aims at exploring factors leading to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use with special attention to their cultural context. METHODS The results are based on medical anthropological fieldwork (participant observation and in-depth inte...