Complementary and alternative medicine: Beyond users and nonusers

SummaryBackgroundStudies of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) commonly distinguish between “users” and “nonusers”.ObjectivesTo examine the group of “users” of CAM practitioners’ services, and to characterize its heterogeneity in relation to the conventional medicine system.DesignThe heterogeneity of CAM users was examined with respect to three variables: user-type—CAM only or both CAM and conventional therapies, provider-type—CAM provider is a medical doctor or not, and referral-type—by a physician or self-referral.MethodsThe data are drawn from two health surveys conducted among 4500 persons representing the Israeli Jewish urban population aged 45–75 in 1993 and in 2000.ResultsMultivariate analyses confirm the heterogeneity of CAM users, and indicate that the variation within “users” is often larger than the variation between “users” and “nonusers”.ConclusionsFor a better understanding of consumers’ behavior with respect to CAM use, one must go beyond the classical classification of “users” versus “nonusers”. The present analysis offers three additional dimensions—user-type, provider-type, and referral-type.