Examination of the frequency of use of traditional and complementary medicine, knowledge and attituders of adults over the age of 18 who applied to the family medicine outpatient clinic

The aim of our study is to examine the use of traditional and complementary medicine, knowledge and attitudes of adults over the age of 18 who applied to the family medicine outpatient clinic. Our study was carried out by giving a questionnaire to 325 participants who applied to the Eskisehir Osmangazi University Family Medicine Outpatient Clinic. A questionnaire prepared in the light of previous studies and literature was applied to measure the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals about which CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) methods they have knowledge about, where they learned this information, which ones they used and their attitudes on this issue. Holistic, complementary and alternative medicine attitude (HCAM) scale was used to evaluate the attitude towards CAM practices. The analysis of the data obtained was evaluated in the SPSS 21 package program and the values with p<0.05 were considered significant. The mean age and standard deviation of the participants were 33.56±11.94, %56.6 were female and %56.3 were single. It constitutes %20.3 of individuals with chronic diseases and who use drugs continuously. %32.6 of the individuals stated that they did not know about any of the CAM applications. The applications with the most knowledge are listed as leech, cupping, phytotherapy and acupuncture. The frequency of those who used CAM applications at least once before was found to be %28.9. The most commonly used CAM applications were found to be phytotherapy, cupping and acupuncture. A significant relationship was found between the use of CAM and age range, marital status, occupation, chronic disease and continuous drug use (p<0.05). The mean and standard deviation of the participants HCAM score 32.19±5.4147. A significant relationship was found between the HCAM score and the use of CAM (p=0.000). As a result of the study use of CAM is common. The use of CAM applications should be informed about this issue, it should be used with evidence-based medicine.