Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Health Literacy in Fibromyalgia

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Many patients with fibromyalgia benefit from complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) in addition totraditional therapy. Health literacy (HL) refers to the ability to seek, understand and apply health information. The aim of thisstudy is to investigate the relationship between CAM use and HL in female patients with fibromyalgia.MATERIALS AND METHODS: An open-ended questionnaire, which also evaluates CAM preferences, was applied to 160 patientswith FMS, and their data were evaluated in a cross-sectional analytical design. Visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain, fibromyalgiaimpact questionnaire (FIQ) and HL Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47) were applied. The patients were divided into two groups (usingCAM (Group 1); not using CAM (Group 2)).RESULTS: According to the results of the questionnaire, the HL score was 30.94 ± 8.40 (problematic-limited level). There was nosignificant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic, clinical parameters, HL and sub-indices (p> 0.05). Theresults of the evaluations made according to the most commonly used CAM methods showed that there is no difference betweenthose who use the relevant CAM method and those who do not, according to the HL general score and subscale scores. The mostpreferred CAM methods were prayer (37.9%), wet cupping (21.8%), herbal therapy (16.30%), dry cupping (12.9%) and thermal bath(11.40%), respectively.CONCLUSION: The results of our study showed that the use of CAM is common among women with FMS, and spiritual methodsare the leading methods. In addition, disease severity and health literacy levels were similar in CAM users and non-users.