Physiotherapy-rehabilitation, and nursing students’ complementary therapy attitudes and level of use

• Published in: Heliyon 2024-06, Vol.10 (12), p.e32982, Article e32982
• Main Authors: Burcu, Genç Köse, Bahar, Kefeli Çol, Ayşe, Gümüşler Başaran
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: alternative medicine; Complementary therapy; cross-sectional studies; education; health services; medicine; Nursing student; Physiotherapy; standard deviation; World Health Organization
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32982

The World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health care about traditional and complementary medicine practices. Evaluating the attitudes of physiotherapy-rehabilitation students and nursing students toward conventional and complementary practices holds significant importance in healthcare education and practice. However, it is worth noting that a limited body of research focuses explicitly on these student groups. This cross-sectional study was conducted with 446 students in the departments of physiotherapy-rehabilitation and nursing in a university's faculty of health sciences. The data were collected using the Complementary, Alternative, and Conventional Medicine Attitude Scale (CACMAS) and the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Approaches Scale (CAMAS). The analyses used percentages, averages, standard deviation, Student's t, Mann-Whitney U, one-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis analysis, the Scheffe post hoc test, and Pearson correlation. 95.5 % of the students did not use complementary therapy previously; the education process of 89.7 % did not cover complementary treatment; 73.3 % stated that complementary therapy education should be given at schools; 74.2 % wanted to use complementary therapy. However, 94.2 % reported that the Ministry of Health did not know about complementary therapy regulations. The average total score was 25.44 ± 8.953 for the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Approaches Scale and 111.29 ± 16.092 for the Complementary, Alternative, and Conventional Medicine Attitude Scale. The students believed conventional and complementary therapy methods should be used for patients, and they expressed a keen interest in their professional practice after graduation. •The attitudes of students towards complementary therapy are moderate.•Students have not received formal training in traditional and complementary therapy.•Students believe these approaches should be employed in patient care.•Awareness of traditional and complementary therapy increases the level of use.•It is recommended that these approaches topics be included in physiotherapy-rehabilitation and nursing curricula.