Engaging with complementary and alternative medicine in general practice

A number of surveys in New Zealand have documented the growing interest and experience that GPs have in their encounters with complementary and alternative medicine. This study has focussed on reasons why some GPs choose to engage with CAM, how these reflect their aims of health care, the difficulties they encounter and how these are negotiated within the consultation.

A sample of 12 mainstream GPs from the greater Auckland area agreed to a semi-structured interview, and the transcripts were analysed using grounded theory technique.

All general practitioners interviewed in this study were confronted to a greater or lesser extent with their patients' interest in CAM. Not all chose to engage with the subject. Those who did engage cited a number of reasons for doing so which included a desire to remain patient-centred, to place their patients' choices within the context of a good diagnosis, to provide what evidence-based information they could and to minimise potential harms from its use.

This study adds weight to findings in previous studies that many general practitioners encounter CAM in their consultations and explores reasons why they choose to engage with it. The findings suggest that increased dialogue with non-mainstream health practitioners and access to knowledge sources giving a basic understanding of CAM practices and philosophies that both CAM and mainstream practitioner communities regard as reliable would be of benefit to these GPs.