Complementary and alternative medicine instruction in nursing curricula

With an ever-increasing number of consumers reportedly using non-conventional methods of disease management, nurses have now been recognized as key providers in education on complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM). The risk of herb-drug interactions secondary to consumer use of alternative medicines further increases the need for nurses to assume the role of patient educators in the area of CAM. Many nurses, however, feel rather ill-prepared to properly care for patients using CAM due to inadequate instruction on the subject matter during their training. Many nursing educators have now moved to address such concerns by considering including education on CAM therapies in the nursing school curriculum. This study evaluated CAM education in US nursing schools to gain a perspective on how nursing students are currently being trained. A survey questioning CAM education was administered to 148 nursing schools and collected over a 3-month period. The results indicate that nearly half of the responding schools offered some form of education on CAM in their curriculum with electives being the primary form of instruction. Teaching methodologies on CAM instruction in the curriculum included group discussion on CAM topics, lectures, and review of case studies. The majority of faculty respondents in this study held Ph.D. degrees followed by instructors holding a MS, DNS, and/or MSN degree.