How do patients integrate complementary medicine with mainstream healthcare? A survey of patients' perspectives

Complementary medicines (CM) are widely consumed by Australians. However, CM is not included in policy and planning of patient-centred models of healthcare. This study aimed to explore how patients themselves manage to integrate CM with mainstream healthcare.

An online survey was distributed through snowball sampling via professional networks and targeted advertising in social media to Australian consumers of CM. Data were managed in Excel and analysed using descriptive statistics in IBM SPSS v23 and Stata v13.

A total of 379 consumers of CM therapies or products completed the survey. The mean age was 51 years, 83% were female and 34% reported having a chronic disease. CM consumers consulted a wide range of healthcare providers. Almost all (97%) had seen a general medical practitioner (GP) within the past year. Overwhelmingly, participants (95%) reported that they themselves were the primary managers of their own healthcare, either on their own (60%) or in collaboration with a CM practitioner (19%) or GP (16%). Approximately 60% of participants reported that they freely discussed their visits to CM practitioners with their GP. Among those, however, males with chronic disease were less likely to disclose CM practitioner consultations (X²₍₁₎ = 4.1, p =  0.04) and over-the-counter pharmaceutical consumption (X²₍₁₎ = 3.8, p =  0.05) to GPs than males without chronic disease. Small numbers in some subgroup analyses suggested that further, larger studies on patient perspectives should particularly target males with chronic disease. Most respondents (83%) valued free choice of health practitioner as extremely or very important (83%). A sense of practitioner community was extremely or very important to the majority (76%) of participants.

CM consumers see themselves as primary managers of their healthcare. They want more communication between healthcare providers, which could support them in the safe integration of their total healthcare options. Healthcare policy and planning should recognise the totality of influences on patient health, including the range of CM practitioners and products used by some healthcare consumers.