Pharmacy students’ attitudes and perceptions about complementary and alternative medicine: a systematic review

Mohd Shahezwan Abd Wahab, Phantipa Sakthong, Win Winit-Watjana

Abstract


Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is extensively used worldwide. The attitudes and perceptions of pharmacy students about CAM may influence their practices upon graduation. In this work, a systematic review was conducted by searching available electronic databases, i.e., Medline, Web of Science, Directory of Open Access Journals, SCOPUS and CINAHL, using CAM-related search terms to summarise pharmacy students’ attitudes and perceptions about CAM. Relevant peer-reviewed articles published in English within the years 2000–2014 were included. Pertinent data from eligible articles were recorded in a data-collection form and summarised. A total of 21 out of 2070 studies were included in the review, and nearly all of these studies were cross-sectional surveys. Overall, pharmacy students expressed favourable attitudes towards CAM and tended to believe that CAM could benefit conventional medicine. However, they opposed CAM modalities without scientific evidence. In addition, pharmacy students generally agreed that CAM knowledge was important, and they desired more CAM-related training and education. The Internet and mass media were commonly referred to by the pharmacy students for CAM information. The lack of scientific evidence for CAM was perceived by the students as a major barrier to CAM applications. Our findings may assist pharmaceutical educators in planning for teaching and training related with CAM.   


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References


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