Complementary and alternative medicine: Beyond users and nonusers

Studies of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) commonly distinguish between "users" and "nonusers".

To examine the group of "users" of CAM practitioners' services, and to characterize its heterogeneity in relation to the conventional medicine system.

The heterogeneity of CAM users was examined with respect to three variables: user-type-CAM only or both CAM and conventional therapies, provider-type-CAM provider is a medical doctor or not, and referral-type-by a physician or self-referral.

The data are drawn from two health surveys conducted among 4500 persons representing the Israeli Jewish urban population aged 45-75 in 1993 and in 2000.

Multivariate analyses confirm the heterogeneity of CAM users, and indicate that the variation within "users" is often larger than the variation between "users" and "nonusers".

For a better understanding of consumers' behavior with respect to CAM use, one must go beyond the classical classification of "users" versus "nonusers". The present analysis offers three additional dimensions-user-type, provider-type, and referral-type.