Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Despite a lack of quality-assessed structured professional formation, many patients with cancer visit NMPs for advice. Patients and Methods: A standardized questionnaire was distributed to adult cancer patients addressing attitudes towards NMPs, motives and expectations for consulting an NMP.
Results: A total of patients took part in the survey. Of the included patients Reasons to visit an NMP were seeking for a supplementary treatment While the oncologist ranked higher than the NMP in all aspects of physician-patient interaction and patients more often trusted in the oncologist, those patients rating their oncologist rather low in any of these questions significantly more often consulted an NMP.
The methods applied or recommended by the NMPs were highly heterogenous ranging from biologically-based methods to mind-body-techniques. Most often used methods were homeopathy Conclusion: There is a high proportion of cancer patients visiting NMPs mostly for additional treatment. Biologically-based treatments may induce side-effects and interactions, especially as NMPs are not trained on medically accepted cancer treatment and medications.
Offering information on CAM and improving the physician-patient relationship are important means to answer unmet needs from the side of the patient. Keywords: Non-medical-practitioner, complementary and alternative medicine CAM , communication, cancer, patientphysician-relationship.
Approximately half of all cancer patients use complementary and alternative medicine CAM 1. The main reasons for using CAM are to reduce side-effects or to boost the immune-system. No uniform definition on CAM exists, yet the term comprises methods beyond conventional or academic medicine which are used instead of or along with conventional medicine. The range of CAM procedures is wide and includes movement and exercise therapy, mental and cognitive methods, nutrition, diet, and supplements, as well as biologically-based methods, such as phytotherapy.
