Do Attitudes Toward and Beliefs About Complementary Medicine Affect Treatment Outcomes?

Many patients seek help from practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Patients’ prior knowledge of CAM and desire for egalitarian relationships with medical practitioners have been shown to increase CAM use,1,2 as have higher scores on the Absorption scale (a measure of anxiety and “self-absorption”).3 Other personality scales do not predict CAM use.4 Although users of CAM might not agree, a common view among scientists is that CAM outcomes are mediated through a placebo effect5,6; that is, patients improve because they expect to do so. Our aims in the study described here were to assess the validity of the Attitudes toward Alternative Medicine Scale (AAMS) and to determine whether asthmatic patients who had positive attitudes toward and beliefs about CAM showed greater positive changes in outcomes.