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Knowledge and attitudes towards complementary medicine

Guest Editors:
Joanna E. Harnett: The University of Sydney, Australia
Carolina Oi Lam Ung: University of Macau, China
 


BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies called for submissions to our Collection on knowledge and attitudes towards complementary medicine. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies aims to bridge the gap in knowledge about complementary medicine. Despite the widespread use of complementary medicine and therapies (CAM), knowledge about how healthcare providers, caregivers, and the general public choose and use complementary approaches to healthcare remains limited. The collection  encouraged discussions in the scientific community about knowledge and attitudes towards CAM across diverse patient populations and cultural settings.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Joanna E. Harnett: The University of Sydney, Australia

Joanna Harnett is a senior lecturer (complementary medicines) within the Faculty of Medicine Health at the University of Sydney’s Pharmacy School. Her teaching and research activity include: the appropriate and safe use of complementary medicine products, integrative medicine education and communication, and gastrointestinal microbiome in health and disease. She currently serves on the board of the International Society for Traditional, Complementary, Integrative Medicine Research. She is a member of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration Advisory Committee for Complementary Medicines.
 

Carolina Oi Lam Ung: University of Macau, China

Carolina Ung is an assistant professor at the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences and the Department of Public Health and Medicinal Administration at University of Macau. Her research work mainly falls within the following 4 areas: (1) regulatory science in medical and pharmaceutical products, (2) evidence base about traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, (3) community health and chronic disease management and (4) social and administrative pharmacy. Dr. Ung is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Sydney School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Australia.
 


About the collection

BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies is calling for submissions to our Collection on knowledge and attitudes towards complementary medicine. 

BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies aims to bridge the gap in knowledge about complementary medicine. Despite the widespread use of complementary medicine and therapies (CAM), knowledge about how healthcare providers, caregivers, and the general public choose and use complementary approaches to healthcare remains limited. This collection seeks to encourage discussions in the scientific community about knowledge and attitudes towards CAM across diverse patient populations and cultural settings.

BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies invites submissions to this collection on topics such as, but not limited to, patients and practitioners' knowledge and perspectives on CAM use, current challenges and research opportunities. We welcome contributions from a variety of disciplines, perspectives, and both qualitative and quantitative studies, to enhance our understanding of complementary approaches to healthcare in diverse populations and cultural settings  and promote evidence-based practice.


Image credit: dragana991 / Getty Images / iStock

  1. In health care, two in three users of complementary therapies (CT) stay silent about their CT use. Disclosure of CT use to physicians is important for patient safety, participation, and shared decision-making....

    Authors: Pauliina Aarva, Tiina Väänänen, Maija Pyykkönen and Tiia-Tuulia Kankkunen
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:336
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Pakistani immigrants are the largest non-Western ethnic minority group in Norway. Traditional medicines (TM) are extensively used in Pakistan, and studies show that ethnic minorities also use them to recover f...

    Authors: Saliha Khalid, Agnete Egilsdatter Kristoffersen, Lise-Merete Alpers, Christine Råheim Borge, Samera Azeem Qureshi and Trine Stub
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:331
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Available data suggest that general practitioners (GPs) in Germany use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities more frequently than GPs in many other countries. We investigated the country diff...

    Authors: Klaus Linde, Robert Bayer, Jan Gehrmann and Bianca Jansky
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:328
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Half of all patients with cancer use complementary medicine. Given the benefits and risks associated with complementary medicine use, contact between complementary medicine practitioners and conventional healt...

    Authors: Marit Mentink, Julia Jansen, Janneke Noordman, Liesbeth van Vliet, Martine Busch and Sandra van Dulmen
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:285
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. The utilization of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is experiencing a global surge, accompanied by the adoption of national CAM policies in numerous countries. Traditional Persian medicine (TPM) is...

    Authors: Seyed Reza Abdipour Mehrian, Shahadat Uddin, Zahra Ghahramani, Reza Moshfeghinia, Saeed Shahabi, Aliakbar Haghdoost, Golsa Mesbahi, Mahmoud Khodadost, Mohammad Hashem Hashempur, Mojtaba Heydari, Morteza Mojahedi, Majid Nimrouzi, Mehdi Pasalar, Hossein Molavi Vardanjani and Kamran Bagheri Lankarani
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:253
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. The use of finished herbal products (FHPs) among Malaysians today is expanding rapidly leading to a huge market of FHPs in the country. However, the mass production of FHPs in today’s market is alarming due to...

    Authors: Nur Syamila Mohd Roziman, Wardah Mustafa Din, Zurina Mahadi, Farida Islahudin and Mazlina Md. Said
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:252
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used by patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, their reasons and experience in using TCM have received insufficient attention. Therefore, we co...

    Authors: Qiuyang Jia, Yuebo Song, Chi Zhang, Mingxuan Li, Luda Feng, Kazuo Sugimoto, Xuebin Zhang, Jia Liu and Ying Gao
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:231
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) injection has been widely used as adjunctive therapy for pulmonary heart disease (PHD) in China. Nevertheless, the efficacy of STS injection has not been systematically ev...

    Authors: Huikai Shao, Fei Yu, Dongsheng Xu, Chunyan Fang, Rongsheng Tong and Lingguo Zhao
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:151
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. Natural health products (NHP) are an important part of the healthcare system. They are mainly non-prescription and sold over the counter, which requires active decision making by the consumer. Within the frame...

    Authors: Miriam Wolf, Agnes Emberger-Klein and Klaus Menrad
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:103
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Recent estimates indicate that a significant proportion of diabetic patients globally, up to 51%, are utilizing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). To improve patient-provider communication and optim...

    Authors: Abdulaziz S. Alzahrani, Sheila M. Greenfield, Sunil Shrestha and Vibhu Paudyal
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:81
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. The concept of ‘medical pluralism’ has become more popular among scholars in applied health science and prevalent in societies where one medical system alone cannot adequately meet the health care needs of the...

    Authors: Raden Maya Febriyanti, Kurniawan Saefullah, Raini Diah Susanti and Keri Lestari
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:64
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Women living with breast cancer (BC) rely on traditional medicine (TM) in addition to orthodox medicine. There is a need to understand how and why women diagnosed with BC utilise TM. This study explored and de...

    Authors: Adwoa Bemah Boamah Mensah, Stella Baffour Asuo, Kofi Boamah Mensah, Joshua Okyere, Shalini Kulasingam, Beth Virnig and Joe-Nat Clegg-Lamptey
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:50
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is frequently used in the general population, yet only limited data are available regarding the prevalence of these medications in patients with chronic kidney dise...

    Authors: Ming-Yen Tsai, Yu-Chuen Huang, Ben-Chung Cheng, Chieh-Ying Chin, Yung-Tang Hsu and Wen-Chin Lee
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2024 24:11
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. We conducted a comparative study to examine the differences in the use of complementary therapies (CT) among patients who attended diabetic clinics for follow-up treatment between 2007 and 2023 in Taiwan.

    Authors: Hsiao-Yun Chang, Yu-Yao Huang, Chin-Jung Chung and Feng-Hsuan Liu
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2023 23:455
    Content type: Research Published on:

  15. Natural health products (NHPs), including vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements, are the most common complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among cancer patients. Our survey determined the attitudes...

    Authors: Audrey Schils, Anne-Sophie Lechon, Sarah Rondeaux, Florence Souard, Jean-Luc Van Laethem, Stephanie Pochet, Veronique Mathieu and Carine De Vriese
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2023 23:442
    Content type: Research Published on:

  16. The growing popularity and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) products among the general public worldwide has been well documented. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitude, and...

    Authors: Azhar Hussain Tahir, Maria Tanveer, Gul Shahnaz, Muhammad Saqlain, Shagufta Ayub and Ali Ahmed
    Citation: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 2023 23:432
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Knowledge and attitudes towards complementary medicine" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.