Research article

Homeopathic and conventional treatment for acute respiratory and ear complaints: A comparative study on outcome in the primary care setting

Max Haidvogl^{* 1} , David S Riley^{* 2} , Marianne Heger^{* ^ 9,3}, Sara Brien^{* 4} , Miek Jong⁵ , Michael Fischer^{* 6} , George T Lewith^{* 4} , Gerard Jansen^{* 7} and André E Thurneysen^{* 8}

¹Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Homeopathy, Graz, Austria

²University of New Mexico School of Medicine and Integrative Medicine Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

³HomInt, Karlsruhe, Germany

⁴Complementary Medicine Research Unit; Primary Medical Care, University of Southhampton, Southhampton, UK

⁵VSM Geneesmiddelen, Alkmaar, The Netherlands

⁶ClinResearch GmbH, Cologne, Germany

⁷Tilburg, The Netherlands

⁸Institute for Complementary Medicine (KIKOM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

⁹passed away in 2005

author email corresponding author email^Deceased * Contributed equally

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2007, 7:7doi:10.1186/1472-6882-7-7

Published:	2 March 2007

Abstract

Background

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of homeopathy compared to conventional treatment in acute respiratory and ear complaints in a primary care setting.

Methods

The study was designed as an international, multi-centre, comparative cohort study of non-randomised design. Patients, presenting themselves with at least one chief complaint: acute (≤ 7 days) runny nose, sore throat, ear pain, sinus pain or cough, were recruited at 57 primary care practices in Austria (8), Germany (8), the Netherlands (7), Russia (6), Spain (6), Ukraine (4), United Kingdom (10) and the USA (8) and given either homeopathic or conventional treatment. Therapy outcome was measured by using the response rate, defined as the proportion of patients experiencing 'complete recovery' or 'major improvement' in each treatment group. The primary outcome criterion was the response rate after 14 days of therapy.

Results

Data of 1,577 patients were evaluated in the full analysis set of which 857 received homeopathic (H) and 720 conventional (C) treatment. The majority of patients in both groups reported their outcome after 14 days of treatment as complete recovery or major improvement (H: 86.9%; C: 86.0%; p = 0.0003 for non-inferiority testing). In the per-protocol set (H: 576 and C: 540 patients) similar results were obtained (H: 87.7%; C: 86.9%; p = 0.0019). Further subgroup analysis of the full analysis set showed no differences of response rates after 14 days in children (H: 88.5%; C: 84.5%) and adults (H: 85.6%; C: 86.6%). The unadjusted odds ratio (OR) of the primary outcome criterion was 1.40 (0.89–2.22) in children and 0.92 (0.63–1.34) in adults. Adjustments for demographic differences at baseline did not significantly alter the OR. The response rates after 7 and 28 days also showed no significant differences between both treatment groups. However, onset of improvement within the first 7 days after treatment was significantly faster upon homeopathic treatment both in children (p = 0.0488) and adults (p = 0.0001). Adverse drug reactions occurred more frequently in adults of the conventional group than in the homeopathic group (C: 7.6%; H: 3.1%, p = 0.0032), whereas in children the occurrence of adverse drug reactions was not significantly different (H: 2.0%; C: 2.4%, p = 0.7838).

Conclusion

In primary care, homeopathic treatment for acute respiratory and ear complaints was not inferior to conventional treatment.