Herbal medicines: predictors of recommendation by physicians.
We hypothesized that as the use of herbal medicines increases in the general population, so do patients' requests to physicians for recommendations. However, why some physicians recommend herbal medicines while others do not is not well understood. To identify factors, which predict recommendation of herbal medicines by physicians. DESIGN, LOCATION, SUBJECTS: Face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire of 206 physicians working at the University of Malaya Medical Centre, Malaysia. About a third (206 of 626) of the physicians in the Centre participated. Only nine of the 215 approached refused to participate. Forty physicians (19%) recommended herbal medicines to patients. Logistic regression modelling identified personal use, general interest, interest in receiving training, race and higher level of medical training as significant predictors of physicians recommending herbal medicines. Physicians' personal attributes and training influence their likelihood of recommending herbal medicines.
PubMed Abstracts
PubMed Abstracts