Evaluation of knowledge, attitude and practice of physicians, nurses and patients referred to the emergency department of Imam Reza Hospital in Tabriz about complementary and alternative medicine

Abstract

Despite the increasing interest in using traditional medicine by patients, there is not much interest from doctors to use these methods in the treatment of patients, which can be caused by concerns due to the lack of scientific evidence, lack of information and lack of training. Enough about the efficiency of these methods. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge and attitude of doctors, nurses and patients about traditional and complementary medicine and the need for training in this field. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire (made by the researcher) in patients referred to the emergency department and physicians and nurses working in the emergency department of Imam Reza Hospital. In the first step, the equivalent words of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding traditional medicine were extracted by reviewing texts and references and a questionnaire was prepared with confirmation of validity and reliability. It was then provided to patients, physicians and nurses and completed by interview. Results: In this study, a questionnaire was distributed among 50 physicians, 70 nurses and 300 patients. The level of knowledge about the use and role of traditional and complementary medicine in the treatment of diseases was scored as a Likert score from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very high) and the average of physicians was 1.6 ۱ 0.1, nurses were 0.7 ± 0.7. / 1 and patients obtained 0.5 ۸ 0.5 so that most participants reported their level of knowledge as "somewhat". Most physicians cited the Internet as their source of information (40%), scientific sources (38%), and friends and family (24%). Only 13 physicians (26%) reported using at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine (traditional medicine). Most nurses mentioned their source of information as friends and family (47.1%) and the Internet (35.7%). Forty nurses (57.1%) reported using at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine (traditional medicine). Most patients mentioned their source of information as friend and family (50.7%) and Internet (33.3%) (Table 4-9). 203 patients (67.7%) reported that they had used at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine (traditional medicine). In analytical analysis, there was no relationship between belief in traditional / complementary medicine and the degree of religiousness of the individual (p = 0.351).