Investigation of attitudes of hypertension patients toward holistic complementary and alternative medicine

Abstract

Background: Hypertension is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases. Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the attitudes of patients diagnosed with hypertension toward holistic complementary and alternative medicine. Method: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out with 230 adult patients diagnosed with hypertension who applied to the internal medicine and cardiology outpatient clinics of a Training and Research Hospital. Data were collected using the Personal Information Form and the Attitude Scale towards Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, independent groups t-test, Kruskal-Wallis, and ANOVA tests. In addition, the Dunn-Bonferroni test was used to determine the difference between groups. Results: The study revealed that the mean age of the patients was 54.36 ± 13.09, while 59.1 % were women, 81.3 % were married, 27.4 % were literate, and 61.3 % were unemployed. Also, it was observed that 41.3 % of the patients were diagnosed with hypertension between 1 and 5 years, 58.7 % had no other chronic illnesses, and 60.0 % had a family hypertension history. Additionally, 77.0 % of the patients used CAM, 24.9 % got information from the Internet/media via CAM, 27.1 % used CAM in addition to medical treatment, 56.5 % found CAM methods safe, 38.4 % used herbal agents, 76.3 % It has been determined that ten of them benefit from the use of CAM. The patients’ total mean score participating in the study in HCAMQ was 28.80 ± 6.73. Conclusion: It was determined that the patients' attitudes toward CAM were positive and moderate. Additionally, the findings disclosed that the education level of the patients affected their use of CAM, their benefit from CAM, and their attitudes towards CAM.