The level of knowledge about traditional and complementary medicine of family physicians in Elaziğ and attitudes

Recently, the world of interest and relevance to traditional and extension medicine practices in general and has increasingly continues. In our study, it was aimed to examine the knowledge levels and attitudes of family physicians working in the province of Elazig about Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM) practices with this cross-sectional and descriptive study and to reveal their views on this subject. In this descriptive cross-sectional, single-center study, 159 specialists and general practitioners in Elazig province participated. A survey form was created to examine the demographic characteristics of the participants, their attitudes and thoughts about T&CM applications, and the survey data were obtained between May 2023 and June 2023 with an online survey. The survey was prepared using the Google form (docs.google.com). SPSS 21 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 21) statistical program was used to evaluate the findings obtained in our study. A total of 159 physicians, 82 (51.6%) female and 77 (48.4%) male, were included in our study. The mean age of the participants was 34.3(ss=8.610; min=24, max=58). The proportion of physicians with a tenure of more than 10 years was 27%. 13.8% of the participants received training on T&CM applications. 71.1% of physicians wanted to receive certified T&CM training. Participants had the most knowledge about Acupuncture with 47.7%. Physicians stated that 71.7% preferred the use of T&CM as healthy life and protection. The rate of participants who thought that T&CM should be applied only by physicians who had completed the necessary training was found to be 80%. 81% of the participating physicians wanted T&CM applications to be covered by SGK reimburseme. 55.3% of the physicians stated that they recommend T&CM to their patients. It was determined that there were 15.7% physicians in Turkey who found access to T&CM applications at a sufficient level. In our study, we found that although physicians wanted to receive certified training on T&CM, the rate of those who received training was low. It can be predicted that this is due to concerns such as security, lack of control, and not being able to get paid for the effort. The main feature of T&CM applications is to protect the basic health by showing a holistic approach to the patient and to provide treatments within the appropriate indications. In T&CM, it can be thought that the holistic approach model, which is one of the basic principles of family medicine, is accepted as the basic principle, and that the execution of two health services together will provide much more benefit to the health system. Key Words: Familiy medicine, Traditional and Complementary Medicine