Knowledge, Attitude, and Self-Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Students of Health Sciences in Kuwait

Objectives: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a category of medicine that includes a variety of treatment approaches that fall outside the realm of conventional medicine. Since current students in different fields of health sciences constitute the future health care professionals, this study was aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitudes, and self-use of CAM among university students in health sciences, including medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and allied health in Kuwait. Design: Cross-sectional study Setting: Four faculties of the Kuwait University including Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Allied Health Subjects: Students, aged 16-32 years, enrolled in the faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Allied Health Sciences under the Health Sciences Center, Kuwait University, Kuwait Intervention: Students were invited to fill a self-administered pretested questionnaire. Main outcome measure(s): University students' knowledge, attitudes, and self-use of CAM Results: Majority of the study participants were young adults aged 20.6 years (SD = 2.1 years). More than 90% of participants had knowledge about meditation, massage, herbal medicine, and blood cupping, whereas reported self-use for these modalities were 52%, 64%, 64%, and 5%, respectively. The least knowledge was for homeopath medicine (21.0%). Medical students had significantly higher knowledge scores of CAM compared to students from other faculties (p <0.001). Conclusion: A high proportion of students from health sciences had knowledge about CAM, although students from medical faculty had the highest knowledge scores. Several CAM modalities including herbal medicine, massage, meditation, and spiritual therapy were used by the students.