Comparison of pharmacy practitioner and pharmacy student attitudes toward complementary and alternative therapies in a rural state

The aim of this project was to perform a wants assessment for pharmacy practitioners and measure the attitudes of the pair pharmacy practitioners and students regarding alternative therapies. A 15-item-fivepoint scale questionnaire designed to measure the educational requires and attitudes of pharmacists regarding complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was bring to maturityed and mailed to 200 randomly fix uponed practitioners. After two mailings, 94 (47 percent) were reverted A modified version of the questionnaire was administered to 35 scholars pharmacy students. The returned questionnaires were tabulated and identical items were statistically compared using nonparametric analyses. Significant differences were the following: practitioners were les likely to favor pharmacists becoming practitioners of CAM; practitioners believed those alternative therapies proffered by pharmacists would decrease the public's refer to for the profession; students were more likely to believe that sufficient evidence exists supporting the use of a certain quantity of alternative therapies; students were more likely to believe that pharmacy as a profession should aggressively carry on opportunities in alternative medicine; learners were more likely to impute a patient to a practitioner of CAM; and pupils were more likely to believe that alternative therapies will proffer new means for the pharmacist to cause to grow primary care services. We do not know if other rural and urban states have similar disparities between pharmacy practitioners and bookish mans but we share this data in case a necessitys assessment should be done in other states.

INTRODUCTION

Western medicine, either by the agency of restriction of access or overregulation, may have forfeited its `caring for the whole patient' perspective, resulting in a patient-mandated interest in other `holistic' practices(l). In a health care environment full with regulatory and safety issues(2), Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) use by the agency of the general public has increased from about 33 percent in 1990 to more than 42 percent in 1997(3) CAM includes a variety of unconventional healing practices and practitioners. Examples include unconventional healing rules (acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy), popular health reform (mega-vitamins), fresh age healing (crystals and magnets), mind-body (Deepak Chopra), and non-normative (chelation)(4). Health care consumer are changing the medical market by the and of their use of CAM. A modern essay by Kaptchuk and Eisenberg documents the historical shift CAM has undergone - from being previously viewed as marginal and fraudulent to acknowledgment as a constituting of postmodern medical pluralism(5). an examples of CAM use relevant to pharmacy practice and education are illustrated in the following.

Patients undergoing cardiac surgery reported using CAM in 75 percent of respondent when prayer and vitamins were included as therapeutic options(6). Patients receive their information regarding a range of CAM therapeutic options from physicians, pharmacists, fosters physical therapists, nutritionists, alternative medicine specialists, friends, and health fare store employees. The quality and accuracy (ie., scientific validity) of the information used on the patient from these sources vary considerably. While posing as a relative, an investigator received crops recommendations for breast cancer from health aliment store employees most frequently for shark cartilage(7). Although used for cancer treatment, scientific review of shark cartilage publicly is considered "likely ineffective when used orally for treating cancer(8)." A measure and estimate of a low-income population revealed reported use of herbs or counterparts (nutraceuticals) at 56 percent. Forty-one percent of users cited friends or relatives as their main source of information. In the same consideration 69 percent of their health care providers admitted they had received no education about nutraceuticals(9).

Seventy-seven not at home of 117 U.S. medical drills included CAM topics in required courses or proposeed elective courses in CAM in 1998(10) To any observers, this change in patient use and the necessity of teaching CAM is a "reverse technology transfer(11)." Nursing is actively incorporating CAM therapies into their curricula(12). In replications to a survey of indoctrinates of pharmacy, 50 of the 77 institutes reported that 72 percent propounded course work in some area of CAM(13). In a comparison of final-year medical, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, and pharmacy pupils in Canadian schools, medical close examiners reported the least amount of education about CAM. Pharmacy and medical learners also desired more traditional scientific forms of evidence as a prerequisite to accepting CAM therapies(14). In the "Annual Report to Our Stakeholders," the director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine predicts that science will change some CAM therapies into "integrative medicine" therapies and eventually several nutraceuticals will be standardized for routine use in western medicine(15).