Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
www.pharmpress.com/fact
Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2005; 10: 22–3
To determine the costs, the health-related quality of life (QoL) and the health behaviour (HB) of users and non-users of alternative medicine in a population-based setting.
Computer-assisted telephone interviews were performed in 1001 subjects (age median 48 years, response rate 46.8%). Questions on QoL (degree of impairment from 1 = not at all to 5 = very much for the categories physical, psychological, partner and friends, work, leisure, overall), the HB (consumption of alcohol/ coffee, physical activity, healthy nutrition, drug use) and costs of alternative medicine were applied.
A total of 423 subjects (42.3%), who were more often female and better educated than the remaining participants (n = 578), reported experiences with CAM. The QoL of users of CAM was more affected than the QoL of non-users. This impact was significant for the overall QoL (13.6 vs. 12.2) and the domains ‘physical’ (3.3 vs. 3.0), ‘psychological’ (2.3 vs. 2.0), ‘work’ (2.7 vs. 2.5) and ‘leisure’ (2.9 vs. 2.6). Users of CAM had a significant better HB for the following items: smoking (23.9 vs. 34.6%), healthy nutrition (27.9 vs. 17.5%) and physical activity (47.2 vs. 39.3%). The median costs were 30 (3–250) euros for a single treatment and 300 (7-12 500) euros for the entire treatment. A total of 50.7% of the users of CAM received some reimbursement from insurance companies. The majority of the users (56.6%) admitted that they would pay more for the achieved result of the treatment.
Users and non-users of CAM can be distinguished by psychosocial characteristics such as QoL and HB. The usage of CAM is associated with considerable costs.
