薬理と治療

Abstract

Objectives Little is known about the health hazards indirectly caused by complementary and alternative medicine in Japan. The objectives of our study are to examine the prevalence of such indirect health hazards, identify the measures to decrease the number of the indirect health hazards, and contribute our results to a more comprehensive understanding of indirect health hazards in Japan. Methods We reviewed and classified the concepts of health hazards. From 29 March to 1 April 2013, we conducted an internet︱based questionnaire survey that targeted patients of the main diseases and covered the major therapies and commodities of complementary and alternative medicine. Results Ninety︱seven（9.6％）of the total 1,011 respondents experienced the indirect health hazards（i. e., health hazards caused by losing their chance to receive appropriate and timely medical care while they received complementary and alternative medical care）. Forty-three（15.1％）of the 285 respondents who used certain therapies or commodities had the same experience. The top three reasons for the experience included：（1）therapists being good at explaining about the therapy,( 2）therapists having an overpowering demeanor, and（3）the advertisement of the commodities being highly attractive. The top solution suggested to decrease the number of the indirect health hazards was changing administrative measures. A multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that none of the therapies and commodities were not significantly associated with the indirect health hazards.