Attitudes and understanding of complementary and alternative medicine in cancer care: An exploratory study of patients’ perspectives in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and types of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities among patients with cancer in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from March 2021 to December 2021. Five hundred patients with cancer were invited to participate in the study. Electronic databases, namely, Google scholar, Publons, EMBASE, PubMed, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, and ResearchGate was used for questionnaire designed. The self-administered survey included questions on demographic characteristics, education level, socio-economic conditions and information about CAM therapies, prevalence, effectiveness, and common CAM modalities. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS software version 22. Results: Out of the 500 invited patients, 433 (86.6%) successfully completed and returned the questionnaires. In contrast to patients who were with younger, highly educated, professionally active, higher income, and had advanced cancer, time since diagnosis, type of treatment, cancer types and family history are significantly associated with CAM use. The results showed that 59.8% of the participants were acquainted with complementary and/or alternative medicine and considered safe owing to its natural ingredients. The prevalence of CAM usage among cancer patients was 40.9% and the most widely used CAM modality was herbal medicine (27.7%) and dietary supplements (28.8%). Patients used CAM as a complementary therapy to improve the morphological parameter (28.2%), strengthen the immune system (6.8%), and to decrease the side effects of conventional treatment (18.1%). Most of the respondents get the information regarding CAM therapy from the electronic media (43.2%) and the family members (48%) rather than healthcare personnel. Conclusions: Participants used CAM modalities along with the conventional health care practices. Further multicentre studies should be conducted to provide information regarding the usage of CAM therapies and their eventual benefits in patients with cancer.