Complementary Medicine in Cancer Patients: Demand, Patient’ Attitudes and Psychological Beliefs

Coping Strategies and the Request for a Consultation on Complementary and Alternative Medicine – a Cross-Sectional Survey of Patients in a Psychosomatic and Three Medical Departments of a German University Hospital

“…A repetition of this survey resulted in 65% in 1997 and in 73% in 2002 [1,5]. More than 50% of European cancer patients are using CAM [6][7][8]. In Germany about 2 billion A were spent on herbal medications in 2000, which is about 10% of the annual drug sales [9].…”

“…Furnham and Beard [15] found no differences in coping styles between outpatients who exclusively used conventional medicine, patients who preferred CAM and a mixed group. For cancer patients, however, the self-empowerment seems to be one of the most important reasons for CAM use [7][8]. Surveys of inpatients about CAM are rare [8] and patients in a German university hospital have not been asked about CAM so far.…”

Beweggründe von Krebspatienten für und gegen die Inanspruchnahme der Misteltherapie

“…Von 1991 bis 2001 war die Misteltherapie in der Beratung des Deutschen Krebsinformationsdienstes das häufigste Thema aus dem Bereich KM [6]. Auch in einer Studie von 1998, die die Inanspruchnahme von KM bei Krebspatienten, deren Motivation für die Inanspruchnahme und Erwartungen an die KM untersuchte, war die Misteltherapie mit 61,6% das meistverwendete KM-Verfahren [7]. Anscheinend hat jedoch der Anteil an Patienten, die zur Misteltherapie greifen, im zeitlichen Verlauf stark abgenommen [8,9,10,11,12].…”

Weis J, et al.: Complementary Medicine in Cancer Patients: Demand, Patients’ Attitudes and Psychological Beliefs. Onkologie 1998;21:144-149. Complementary Medicine in Cancer Patients

“…lifestyle) and nonscientific treatment methods aimed against the disease in question. The study of Weis et al [1] and other studies leave the feeling that CM has not the same value or meaning for the population, the patient and the doctor, respectively. Doctors have an understanding of the disease in question, and this deviates considerably from the representation of this disease in the lay population, diseased or not [8].…”

“…In the last issue of ONKOLOGIE, J. Weis et al [1] examined in a cross-sectional study not only the use but also patients' attitudes and psychological beliefs concerning complementary medicine (CM). Some potentially interesting information was reported: Patients showed very high expectations concerning the usefulness of CM in all tested domains.…”