The Knowledge and Attitudes of The Non Health Worker Citizens and Physicians AboutTraditional and Complementary Medicine: ACross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Aim: Healthcare professionals will set an example to society with their behaviors about Traditional andComplementary Medicine usage. We aimed to investigate and compare the knowledge and attitudes ofsociety and physicians about Traditional and Complementary Medicine to create an infrastructure formedical training. Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study "Turkish Version of Complementary, Alternative andConventional Medicine Attitude Scale" was used for data collection. Results: A total of 392 physicians and 438 citizens participated in the study. Among all participants,36.9% had used a Traditional and Complementary Medicine method before and the most used methodwas phytotherapy. There was a significant difference between groups in terms of the level of knowledge.Surprisingly no significant difference was found between physicians and the public in the"Dissatisfaction with Modern Medicine" subgroup. Conclusion: Although there were differences in the level of knowledge between the public andphysicians, it was seen that the behavioral patterns were similar to each other. This situation suggeststhat physicians are also influenced by the society they live in, rather than scientific data, in their decisionsabout Traditional and Complementary Medicine. Being as a role model to the public, physicians areresponsible for providing evidence-based answers to questions about Traditional and ComplementaryMedicine and should receive adequate training about methods.