Emory Physician To Study Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Use Among Patients
Bennett Lee, M.D., clinical instructor of medicine at the Emory University
School of Medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital, will soon begin conducting
a study to examine the use of complementary and alternative healthcare
among African-American patients at Grady Hospital. The study, scheduled
to begin in January 2003, will survey 200 patients in the hospital’s
general medical clinics to determine whether socioeconomic status, quality
of life and spirituality play a vital role in patients seeking alternative
healthcare.
The study, which is being
funded by an Emory Medical Care Foundation grant, is an attempt to closer
examine the reasons why African-American patients seek alternative and
complementary medicine. Dr. Lee noted that national studies indicate
that people who use alternative medicine are often white, better educated
individuals with higher incomes. Although minority groups have been
surveyed, those numbers have been relatively small.
"We would like to survey
minority groups to see if we get the same sort of results as other researchers
did from the Caucasian population, but also perhaps to discover the
reasons for using alternative care that are different from the populations
previously studied," Lee said.
According to an article published
in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998, only 8 percent,
or 160, of African-Americans were surveyed out of 2,000 participants
in a 1997 national follow-up survey of trends in alternative medicine
use in the United States. The survey, conducted by several researchers,
including lead author David M. Eisenberg, M.D, with the Center for Alternative
Medicine Research and Education, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass., concluded that 42.1 percent
of people surveyed used at least one of 16 alternative therapies. The
therapies included herbal medicine, massage, megavitamins, self-help
groups, folk remedies, energy healing and homeopathy. Alternative therapies
were used most frequently for chronic conditions, including back problems,
anxiety, depression, and headaches.
The survey also concluded
that alternative medicine users increased from 36.3 percent in 1990
to 46.3 percent in 1997. |