Dr. Justice Mbizo

Objective: The use of complimentary and integrative medicines has emerged as significant area of research both in the United States and internationally. However, much remains to be learned about the true magnitude of these products/this practice and the rationale for their use, especially among persons with a combination of health problems. The purpose of our study is twofold: 1) estimate the prevalence of CAM use in menopausal women with a concurrent cancer diagnosis.

Methods: Data was for 19,241 adult American women from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and CAM supplement. The outcome variable was ever use of CAM and CAM use in the women who reported either menopausal problems in 12 months prior, cancer diagnosis or both. Data were weighted and analyzed using Stata software version 14 for Windows. In addition to descriptive and bivariate statistics, multivariate logistic regression was performed to estimate the odds of CAM use by selected covariates and disease dyads.

Results: The average age of the women in the study was 48.9 years (SD = 18.58). Approximately 35.7% of the women experienced menopausal problems in the preceding 12 months, 9% of them had a cancer diagnosis. Overall CAM use was reported in 30.7% of respondents. At the multivariate level, age, race, marital status, education, income, region of residence, high cholesterol, having insurance, smoking, and alcohol consumption were significant (p <0.05). However, the concurrent presence of menopausal problems and cancer diagnosis did not appear to influence CAM use, when adjusting for other covariates (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Health care professionals should be aware of CAM use in this segment of the population due to potential for treatment compliance challenges such as potential drug/CAM interaction.