Use of Complementary or Alternative Medicine in Patients with Cancer in Turkey

Abstract

Abstract:Cancer is one of the major mortality factors for our country and worldwide. In treatment of this illness, additional to standard methods, CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) as alternative and supporting treatments increasingly draws attention. In this study, understanding CAM methods and their usage levels in our country were searched on basis of questionnaire data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software package. The importance degree was analyzed using Fisher's exact test and chi-square test. In our findings, 69% of all patients were receiving the CAM methods and the highest using level was obtained from nettle with 56.6%. The relations between using of CAM were also determined by the educational and economical income levels. According to our results, the CAM methods gained more importance and their usage increased in Turkey. Also, in the world, the use of these methods increases day by day, hence several different countries replace CAM methods from alternative treatment class with the main treatment methods.