Complementary and Alternative Medicines Used by Individuals With Rheumatological Diseases to Cope With Sleeplessness

Abstract

This study aims to determine complementary and alternative medicine methods used by rheumatology patients to cope with insomnia and to evaluate their attitudes toward complementary and alternative medicine methods. This descriptive study was completed with 167 patients followed up by the rheumatology unit of a university hospital. Data were collected with the patient identification form and the Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine Questionnaire. The mean age of the participants was 44.76 ± 8.96 years and the mean disease duration was 52.90 ± 35.51 months. Most of the participants (69.5%) were women, with 64.1% primary school graduates. Majority of the participants (96.4%) knew complementary and alternative medicine methods, and the main source of information (51.5%) was the internet and social media. The most frequently applied method was phytotherapy (58.7%), the most frequently used plant (30.5%) was stinging nettle and the mean Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine Questionnaire score of the patients was 26.68 ± 3.51. Rheumatology patients frequently use complementary and alternative medicine methods to cope with insomnia symptoms and the most commonly used complementary and alternative medicine method used by patients is phytotherapy.