The Attitude, Use and Adverse Effects of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Therapies among Vulnerable, Community Dwelling Old Adults

Young Im Park; Mi Sook Song; Okhee Ahn; Soon Ok Yang; Insook Lee; Hye Sun Hyun

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2014.25.1.1

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Park, Song, Ahn, Yang, Lee, and Hyun: The Attitude, Use and Adverse Effects of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Therapies among Vulnerable, Community Dwelling Old Adults

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2014; 25(1): 1-11.

Published online: 31 March 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2014.25.1.1

The Attitude, Use and Adverse Effects of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Therapies among Vulnerable, Community Dwelling Old Adults

Young Im Park¹, Mi Sook Song², Okhee Ahn³, Soon Ok Yang⁴, Insook Lee⁵, Hye Sun Hyun⁶

¹Department of Nursing, Daejeon University, Daejeon, Korea.

²College of Nursing, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea.

³Department of Nursing, Woosuk University, Jeonju, Korea.

⁴Division of Nursing, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea.

⁵College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

⁶Department of Nursing Science, Hannam University, Daejeon, Korea.

Corresponding author: Hyun, Hye Sun. Department of Nursing Science, Hannam University, 1646 Yuseong-daero, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-811, Korea. Tel: +82-42-629-8882, Fax: +82-42-629-8885, hyun1017@nate.com

Received 23 September 2013 Revised 7 March 2014 Accepted 21 March 2014

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to obtain information of use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) and any reported adverse effects of them on vulnerable elders in a community.

Methods

1,837 elderly subjects aged 65 or higher with health problems were selected from those who were enrolled in a public health care center and received visiting health management services. A proportional stratified sampling method was used. Data collection was completed by face to face interviews using a structured questionnaire. The descriptive statistics and χ²-test were used to analyze the data.

Results

The prevalence of CAM use last year was 57.5%, and 10.4% of the subjects reported adverse effects of the therapies. The mean score of the subjects' attitudes towards CAM was 4.1±3.44 (range 1~10). The major sources of advice and exposure to CAM therapies were most likely to be from family and friends (72.5%). The primary reason for choosing CAM was to manage symptoms and relieve pain (86.6%).

Conclusion

These findings suggest the need to develop nursing strategies for reducing and preventing adverse effects of CAM use by promoting awareness of using safe and appropriate CAM therapies.

Keywords: Aged, Complementary therapies, Adverse effects

Figures and Tables

Figure 1

Sampling procedure.

Table 1

General and Health-related Characteristics of Subjects (N=1,837)

^†Missing data were excluded.

Table 2

Attitudes towards CAM (N=1,837)

CAM=complementary and alternative medicine.

Table 3

Utilization Patterns of Use of CAM (N=1,056)

CAM=complementary and alternative medicine.

^†Users may have used more than one CAM; ^‡Multiple choices.

Table 4

Self-reported Adverse-effects of Use of CAM (N=110)

CAM=complementary and alternative medicine.

^†Multiple choices.

Table 5

The difference of Use of CAM according to General and Health-related Characteristics (N=1,764)

^†Missing data were excluded.

Notes

This research was supported by Project to structure the folk remedy funded by the Korea Institution of Oriental Medicine (K12210).

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