Determination of Practices and Attitudes Of Oncology Nurses, Cancer Patients and Patient Relatives About Complementary - Alternative Medicine Applications

Objective: Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), have been widely used for hundreds of years, varying from country to country and patient to patient. The knowledge and attitudes of patients and health personnel are important in using these methods together with modern treatment methods. The research was conducted in order to determine the practices, knowledge and attitudes of patients, patients' relatives and oncology nurses serving to this group about CAM usage. Methods: The sample of this descriptive study is consisted of cancer patients, receiving chemotherapy and applied to the Outpatient Chemotherapy Unit between February and August 2016 and, their first-degree relatives and the nurses working on this field. Descriptive statistics and variance analysis test were used in the evaluation of the data. Results: 40% of the patients, 39.7% of the patient relatives and 64% of the nurses stated that they were using a random CAM method in their daily life. In comparison between the groups, it was determined that there is a significant difference between the groups in the holistic health subdimension. In the bilateral comparisons, there was a significant difference between patients and nurses in terms of their total health average scores. Conclusion: Majority of patients, patient relatives and nurses stated that they had no information about CAM, but they mentioned that they have frequently applied CAM methods in their daily life. It is recommended that planning trainings about CAM methods for health areas.