Physician use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) literature

Objective: To document the interest of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) literature use among physicians. Design: A retrospective study. Setting: A medical library service. Main outcome measures: Analysis of photocopy requests from published lists of reference in a two-year period by physicians in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Results: The average number of requests per article was 18.7 among CAM literature and 7.1 among non-CAM literature. Ten of the 15 most frequently requested articles were CAM papers. Review articles on herbal medicine demonstrated the most use. Conclusions: There is a definite interest in CAM literature among a specific group of Canadian physicians. Use of scientifically credible literature in peer-reviewed journals will be helpful for patient care, teaching, and research in this field. (C) 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.