COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE AWARENESS IN CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY

Objective: We aimed at investigating the knowledge and attitudes of cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Patients and Methods: 306 cancer patients filled the CAM questionnaire. The patients were evaluated in terms of frequency of CAM use and CAM type, source of information, and reason for use and some other factors. Results: 92.8% of the patients had knowledge about CAM. 63.4% of them used one of the CAM methods. The patients generally used the CAM method thinking it may provide additional benefit to cancer treatments. Conclusions: It was observed that the rate of CAM use among the cancer patients were high. The patients obtained the information about CAM mostly through the media. Education level, disease stage, and place of residence were the independent predictive factors for the CAM use. They tended to use phytotherapy more often than other applications due to the fact that it has been used in our country for years.