Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread in society and are influenced by several factors. The endorsement of alternative medicine treatments, mostly not evidence based, has relevant negative impacts on health care public policies. The understanding of the impact of pseudoscientific beliefs on the endorsement of alternative treatments is a relevant issue in this matter. OBJECTIVES: We aim at describing scientific and pseudoscientific beliefs and its impact on the endorsement of evidence and non-evidence-based health care treatments. METHOD: We conducted a survey in a representative sample of 2,091 participants from all Brazil geopolitical regions and 130 different cities. We measured knowledge about health treatments, including alternative medicine treatments, and trust in each treatment, if treatment had been previously sought, if treatments should be funded by the public health system, among other issues. We also measured beliefs in scientific and pseudoscientific claims using a 5-point Likert agreement scale with 9 items with two factors: Scientific beliefs and Pseudoscientific beliefs. RESULTS: Our results show that most part of the sample recognizes conventional medicine as a treatment (64.5%), but also alternative medicine practices such as homeopathy (69.2%), and spiritual therapy (68.6%). We found that support of all alternative medicine treatments is significantly predicted by pseudoscientific beliefs (betas regression coefficients ranging from .13 to .38 all p <.01). On the other hand, the support of evidence-based medicine is rooted in scientific beliefs (beta = .12, p<.01). CONCLUSION: Our results have shown a high rate of prevalence of pseudoscientific beliefs related to non-evidence-based health treatments. It also shreds a favorable evidence that general pseudoscientific beliefs are relevant to assess the endorsement of non-evidence-based healthcare.
Highlights
How to cite this article: Taschner NP, Orsi C, Almeida PVG, Pilati R
A kind of relevant issue is the beliefs developed about pseudoscientific knowledge
This study had a representative sample of 2,091 participants from all Brazil geopolitical regions and 130 different size cities
Summary
How to cite this article: Taschner NP, Orsi C, Almeida PVG, Pilati R. The way beliefs and cognitive representations, based, overall, on personal and close one's experiences, biased by several distinct cognitive processes, are fundamental mechanisms to understand why people adhere to non-evidence-based practices.[7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] This study analyzes personal beliefs on science and pseudoscience as predictors of evaluations and intentions to seek nonevidence-based health practices. This kind of study can help to formulate public policies to inform the population better. In 2018, the Brazilian Ministry of Health increased the list of such PICs to 29
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
