[Use of alternative therapies by nursing teachers]

The necessity of the health professionals to understand the health illness process in a different paradigm of the valid bio-medical model is more and more present. The objective of this work was verify what are the alternatives practices utilised for Nursing teachers for themselves and/or in their respective family relatives and if these teachers have been utilised the practices and if they talk about this subject with their students. The population of this study were 59 Nursing graduate teachers from São Paulo City placed in four different teaching institutions that answered a questionnaire. The people that answered the questionnaire were chosen at random and the data were collected in October, 1996. Among the results, we verified that 39 (66.1%) of them referred that they used the APH, in fact, the more usual alternative practice is the homeopathy (24 times), floral (21) and the eastern massage (13). The people did not use the APH are for its use in specific situations; 56 (94.9%) teachers were for its teaching, but only 31 (52.5%) talk about APH to their students.