engleski

Integrating Complementary and Integrative Medicine in Education of Health Care Workers-Do we need it?

BACKGROUND: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been described as „set of health care practices that are not part of that country’s own tradition or conventional medicine and are not fully integrated into the dominant health-care system“ (World Health Organization). Because of the increasing number of patients who use complementary, alternative and integrative therapies, the question arises of the education of health professionals in the field of CAM so that they can talk openly and professionally with their patients about CAM. AIM: The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on the need of health professionals for education in the field of CAM RESULTS: According to data from the literature, up to 60 percent of patients with chronic illnes use some form of CAM, bur the majority of patients do not share their use of CAM with their health care workers (HCW) often fearing of its scorn or skepticism. Despite widespread and increasing of CAM, there are limited data on how conventional medical practitioners communicate with their patients about CAM. Perhaps, the HCW frequently fielded questions about CAM, but, because of lack of education and experience, they were likely to respond to patient inquiries neutraly or negatively and feel uncomfortable discussing these treatments with their patients. Now, in the USA, the majority of medical schools offer courses on alternative medicine as in the western Europe and United Kingdom. There are few studies on CAM in Croatia, especially those that examine the attitudes of health professionals about the need for CAM education. CONCLUSION: Although in Croatia CAM is not legally regulated in practice, at the level of higher education there are institutions that have included CAM as an elective subject in their curricula, which indicates the interest of health professionals in such education.

complementary and alternative medicine, health care workers, medical education

nije evidentirano