Complementary and alternative medicine use by diabetes patients in Kerala, India
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Date
2017-05
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Global health, epidemiology and genomics
Abstract
The study assessed: (1) the prevalence of exclusive use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), exclusive use of
modern medicine and combined use; (2) the factors associated with exclusive CAM use; and (3) the expenditure for CAM
use among type-2 diabetes patients in rural Kerala. We surveyed 400 diabetes patients selected by multi-stage cluster sampling.
Exclusive CAM use was reported by 9%, exclusive modern medicine by 61% and combined use by 30%. Patients without
any co-morbidity were four times, those having regular income were three times and those who reported regular
exercise were three times more likely to use exclusive CAM compared with their counterparts. Expense for medicines
was not significantly different for CAM compared with modern medicine both in government and private sector. Patients
with any co-morbidity were less likely to use CAM indicating that CAM use was limited to milder cases of diabetes.
Description
Keywords
Alternative medicine, diabetes patients, India, Kerala.
Citation
Thankappan KR, Vishnu N, Mini GK . Complementary and alternative medicine use by diabetes patients in Kerala, India. Global health, epidemiology and genomics. 2017.