Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in a Newly Developing Country: a Cross- Sectional Study in Qatar

Abstract

Background: Scarce data exists on the utilization of complementary alternative medicine (CAM) among patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) in Qatar. Primary care clinics offer an ideal opportunity to explore the knowledge, attitudes and practice of CAM among patients with type II diabetes. Methods: A total of 226 subjects with type II diabetes were examined in this cross-sectional descriptive study. SPSS v. 19 was used to analyze the data and predictors of CAM use were identified through the utilization of multiple logistic regressions. Results: 53 % of respondents reported utilizing CAM. Females were 1.2 times more likely to use CAM than males. South East Asians (47.7%) were the most frequent users, followed by Iranians (37.6%) and Arabs (14.6%). Herbal powder (54.4%) was the most widely used, followed by bitter gourd (44%) and fenugreek (40%). Being South East Asian (odds ratio [OR] 5.297, 95 %, CI 2.892-9.377), Muslim (OR 5.259, 95%, CI 2.995-9.198) and attaining a secondary and higher education (OR 5.239, 95%, CI 2.898-9.595) were the only predictors for CAM use after adjustments for gender, ethnicity, religion, occupation, family household income and hypertension. Conclusions: This study showed a high prevalence of CAM usage among patients with type II diabetes living in Doha, Qatar. This use is associated with patients' family educational level, source of information, previous experience and their view about concomitant use of CAM and conventional medicine. The most-common complementary alternative medicinal products used were herbal powder, bitter gourd and fenugreek. Due to the high prevalence of usage of CAM future studies on the anti-glycemic properties of the utilized herbs should be carried out.

Complementary and alternative medicine use among type 2 diabetes patients in a tertiary care hospital

“…6,12,17,18 The participants of the current study revealed that most important reasons for using CAM was the expectation that CAM will reduce their symptoms, avoid complications besides being safe. Among CAM users only small proportions of the patients (2%) did experience difficulty in controlling their blood-sugar levels inspite of addition of CAM modality to their conventional Anti-diabetic medications.…”

Complementary and alternative medicine use and self-efficacy level in Turkish adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus

“…In the present study, the difference between age, gender, marital status, educational status, employment status and perceived income status was not significant (Table 1). When the current literature is examined, it has been determined that the study results concerning the use of CAM vary according to the sociodemographic data 11,14,16,19,33,41,43 . The differences in socio-demographic data can be thought to be associated with the effect of cultural and environmental factors in the regions where the studies were conducted.…”

“…This form was prepared based on the literature by the researchers and involved a total of 9 questions to determine the state of the patients to use CAM, their reasons of using CAM, CAMs used by them, persons recommending the use of CAM, the outcome expected from the use of CAM, the side effect of the used CAM method, the health status perceived before and after the CAM use, and sharing of the used CAM with the healthcare personnel 13,14,16,18 .…”

“…In the studies conducted in Turkey, it is observed that the rate of CAM use varies between 25-50.0% [10][11][12][13][14] . In the studies conducted with patients with DM in other countries, the rate of CAM use is 81.9% in the USA 15 , 63.9% in Malaysia 6 , and 53.0% in Qatar 16 , 46.3% in Sydney 17 . When the literature is examined, it is determined in the studies that patients with DM have used mostly herbal products among CAM methods [11][12][13][14][15][18][19][20] .…”

The health beliefs of patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus who use herbs as a complement to self-care

“…There is insufficient evidence to make recommendations regarding the efficacy and safety of complementary or alternative medicine for individuals with diabetes [8]. In certain Eastern and ethnic cultures, CAM treatment plays an integral part in an individual's health belief system, where religious teachings, rituals, and family influences play a major role in an individual's health behavior [9]. Diabetics tend to use herbal remedies to minimize dissatisfaction with conventional therapies, their concerns about possible side effects caused by conventional therapies, and believe that herbal remedies from natural sources are safer and more effective [7].…”