Development of the adult and child complementary medicine questionnaires fielded on the National Health Interview Survey

Abstract

The 2002, 2007, and 2012 complementary medicine questionnaires fielded on the National Health Interview Survey provide the most comprehensive data on complementary medicine available for the United States. They filled the void for large-scale, nationally representative, publicly available datasets on the out-of-pocket costs, prevalence, and reasons for use of complementary medicine in the U.S. Despite their wide use, this is the first article describing the multi-faceted and largely qualitative processes undertaken to develop the surveys. We hope this in-depth description enables policy makers and researchers to better judge the content validity and utility of the questionnaires and their resultant publications.

Complementary and alternative medicine use among US cancer survivors

“…The definition of CAM has evolved over time and varies in the literature [6], with some definitions including [21–24] and excluding [25, 5] vitamins and minerals. For example, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) includes vitamins and minerals in their definition of CAM [8], but not all prior NHIS CAM analyses have included vitamins and minerals in the definition [5]. In order to facilitate comparisons of use between different types of CAM-related health promotion strategies, future studies may need to consistently include vitamins and minerals in the definition of CAM.…”

“…In 2007, the NHIS added questions on CAM cost. Details on the NHIS survey design and the development of the Adult Alternative Medicine questionnaire have previously been reported [8]. …”

Out-Of-Pocket Expenditures on Complementary Health Approaches Associated With Painful Health Conditions in a Nationally Representative Adult Sample

“…This would undoubtedly lead to an underestimate of total national expenditures. However, since the 2007 NHIS was designed 45 to capture the most prevalent forms of complementary health approaches used in the U.S., it is likely that any underestimate would be small compared to the current estimated expenditures. Finally, the data used for this analysis are now 8 years old.…”

“…The developmental processes for this supplement have been previously described 45 . The supplement contained questions on 36 types of complementary health approaches used in the United States, including practitioner-based approaches (see Appendix A; e.g., acupuncture, chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation; naturopathy, etc.…”

“…Also excluded were 332 individuals with missing data pertinent to cost calculations (e.g., number of visits) (see Figure 1 for detail). Finally, during development and cognitive testing of the NHIS supplement on complementary health approaches 45 , no respondent reported more than daily purchases of NVNMDS. Therefore, in the current analysis, responses indicating purchases of more than 365 times per year were excluded from the analysis as presumed keystroke errors (n = 21).…”