Abstract
We estimated prevalence rates of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by reason for use (treatment, wellness, or both), and examined perceived benefits of using CAM among U.S. adults with migraines/severe headaches. The 2012 National Health Interview Survey, which represents non-institutionalized adults with migraines/severe headaches (n = 4447 unweighted), were used. Of the study sample, 41.3% used some form of CAM in the past year. Nearly a third of them (29.6%) used CAM for wellness only and 59% used CAM for both wellness and treatment. In given six self-reported perceived benefits, those who used CAM for wellness only and for a combination of both treatment and wellness had higher likelihoods of reporting benefits for all categories (p < 0.05), except for better sleep, when compared to those who used CAM for treatment only. CAM use was associated with an improvement in several health-related quality of life outcomes in U.S. adults with migraines/severe headaches.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 44-49 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice |
| Volume | 30 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We collected data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which is administrated by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [21]. The NHIS is a cross-sectional in-person interview survey conducted annually, and it represents health care trends among non-institutionalized civilians in the U.S [21]. In addition, the NHIS uses a supplemental questionnaire that extensively collects information regarding the patterns of CAM use every five years, which is sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [22]. NHIS includes a question, “During the past three months, did you have severe headache or migraine?” to survey respondents (yes/no). Using this information, our analytic sample included adults with migraines/severe headaches ages 18 or older and had complete data for all covariates (n = 4447 unweighted). The survey response rate was 61.2%, and the study sample represents a non-institutionalized U.S. adult population [23]. Our study was exempted from the Institutional Review of Board review at the University of Minnesota as we used de-identified data that are publicly available.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017
Keywords
- Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
- Headache
- Health promotion
- Migraine
- Well-being
- Wellness