Family Integrative Medicine refers to therapies that are not accepted by mainstream medical practitioners or are not backed by strong scientific evidence. Some of these practices are old, like Ayurveda, which is thousands of years old, and others are quite new. Some treatments that start out as alternatives may become part of mainstream medicine if they prove to be effective and have low risks.
The use of alternative medicines is widespread. Some people rely on them as their main form of healthcare, while others use them along with conventional treatment or as a supplement to it. In some cases, such as the case of grapefruit seed extract, alternative therapies have proved to be ineffective or dangerous.
Beyond Conventional Care: Navigating the World of Alternative Medicine for Health
In a recent study, multiple logistic regression analyses were used to examine predictors of the use of alternative medicine. It was hypothesized that people would be more likely to use alternative therapies if they were dissatisfied with conventional care and if they were in poor health. However, only 4.4% of those surveyed reported relying primarily on alternative medicine. Instead, higher levels of education and being classified in the value subculture of cultural creatives were predictive of alternative medicine use.
Having poorer health status also predicted alternative medicine use, as did being a sanitizer (the tendency to report symptoms that have no pathophysiological explanation and to attribute them to disease). Moreover, having back problems, anxiety, or urinary tract issues made it more likely that people would seek out alternative treatments for these conditions. This suggests that the use of alternative therapies is largely a response to poor outcomes from traditional care.