HomeDiseaseDo Palliative Care Providers Use Complementary and Integrative Medicine? A Nationwide Survey

Do Palliative Care Providers Use Complementary and Integrative Medicine? A Nationwide Survey

December 6, 2021

J Pain Symptom Manage. 2021 Nov 14:S0885-3924(21)00609-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2021.11.002. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

CONTEXT: Given the high prevalence of burdensome symptoms in palliative care (PC) and increasing use of complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) therapies, research is needed to determine how often and what types of CIM therapies providers recommend to manage symptoms in PC.

OBJECTIVE: To document recommendation rates of CIM for target symptoms and assess if CIM use varies by provider characteristics.

METHODS: Nationwide survey of physicians (MD and DO), physician assistants, and nurse practitioners in PC.

RESULTS: Participants (N=404) were mostly female (71.3%), physicians (74.9%), and cared for adults (90.4%). Providers recommended CIM an average of 6.82 times per-month (95% CI: 6.04-7.60) and used an average of 5.13 (95% CI: 4.90-5.36) out of 10 CIM modalities. Respondents recommended mind-body medicines (e.g., meditation, biofeedback) most, followed by massage, and acupuncture/acupressure. The most targeted symptoms included pain; followed by anxiety, mood disturbance and distress. Recommendation frequencies for specific modality-for-symptom combinations ranged from little use (e.g., aromatherapy for constipation) to occasional use (e.g., mind-body interventions for psychiatric symptoms). Finally, recommendation rates increased as a function of pediatric practice, non-inpatient practice setting, provider age, and proportion of effort spent delivering palliative care.

CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first national survey to characterize PC providers’ CIM recommendation behaviors and assess specific therapies and common target symptoms. Providers recommended a broad range of CIM but do so less frequently than patients report using CIM. These findings should be of interest to any provider caring for patients with serious illness.

PMID:34788656 | DOI:10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2021.11.002

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About The Author

Patrick Blanchard MD

Meet Dr. Blanchard Dr. Blanchard’s medical practice is an embodiment of Integrative health which brings conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. Conveniently located in sunny Florida and over the internet with ValiseMD’s secure HIPPA compliant telXmed servers. Since 1994, patients with a wide range of challenging medical problems have achieved optimum health using the best of natural medicine, judiciously combined with high-tech innovations. Breakthroughs are often achieved even after patients have consulted mainstream specialists and holistic practitioners. Dr. Blanchard is founder and CEO of ValiseMD, Inc. He is board certified in Family Medicine since 1994 and awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians in 2001. He received the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award from the University of Kansas School of Medicine at completion of his residency in Family Medicine. He completed a fellowship at Wake Forest University in the field of vascular neurosonology. He holds a medical patent in the field of Gastroenterology. He holds an unrestricted license to practice medicine and surgery in Florida. He started his medical career as a Emergency Medical Technician, then as a Paramedic and later a Medical Doctor.