Women and Non-Conventional Medicine: A study of Related Factors to the Use of Traditional and Complementary Medicine by Women

Abstract

Background: The increasing tendency of women towards the traditional and complementary medicine shows the changes taking place nowadays. The present study has been carried out with the aim of studying the factors related to the women’s use of traditional and complementary medicine. Methods: This was an analytical and a cross-sectional study in which 464 women who visited six non-conventional medical centers and gave their consent were studied using complete enumeration method. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed and analyzed through SPSS software. The Andersen Socio-behavioral healthcare utilization model was selected as the theoretical model. Results: Based on the theoretical model, the factors related to the use of traditional and complementary medicine were studied in three categories namely predisposing factors, enabling factors, and needs. The results showed that the variables such as job status, attitude toward the traditional and complementary medicine, social networks, and access to traditional and complementary medicine have a positive and significant correlation with the use of traditional and complementary medicine. Discussion and Conclusion: The key factors related to the use of traditional and complementary medicine were predisposing factors like social networks and positive attitude toward the traditional and complementary medicine, and enabling factors like job status and access to traditional and complementary medicine. Since the findings of the present study show no correlation between many demographic factors and the use of traditional and complementary medicine, for future studies it is better to focus on other social and cultural factors related to the use of traditional and complementary medicine.

Keywords

• complementary medicine
• social networks
• traditional medicine
• women’s health