Medical students' knowledge and attitude towards complementary and alternative medicine - A survey in Ghana

Interest, use of and research into Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM; bǔ chōng yǔ tì dài yī xué) is on the increase in recent times even in developed countries. It may therefore be appropriate if medical students who would become future physicians possess adequate knowledge and better attitude towards CAMS. This study assessed medical students' knowledge of, attitude towards, and usage of CAM as well as their opinion about integrating CAMs into the medical curriculum. In a cross-sectional study, 203 medical students in 2nd, 3rd and 4th year classes completed a questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS 18 and GraphPad 5.01. Association between different variables was tested. The overall mean knowledge score was 19.6%. Students in higher years of study were significantly more knowledgeable in CAMs (p = 0.0006). The best known CAM was herbal medicine (63.6%), with relatives and friends being their main source of information. Students' attitude towards CAM was good (75.1%) with majority (71.5%) favouring introduction of CAM into the medical curriculum; preferably at the preclinical level (67.5%). Year of study, gender and locality where student grew up did not significantly affect attitude towards CAM use. Up to 117 (59.0%) of the students had ever used CAM especially herbal medicine. Although students in this study were deficient in knowledge on CAMs, their attitude and usage was good. Herbal medicine was the best known and used CAM. Majority of the students believed knowledge on CAM would be beneficial to their practice hence, desirous of its introduction into their medical curriculum.