An Evaluation of Senior Pharmacy Students%26apos; Perceptions and Knowledge of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at a Malaysian University

作者：Al Dulaimy Sarmed Nabhan Yaseen^*; Hassali Mohamed Azmi Ahmad; Awaisu Ahmed

来源：Journal of the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society, 2012, 18(1): 41-43.

Background: The global market for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is projected to reach US$5 trillion by 2050. With increased global efforts to integrate complementary and alternative therapies into modern medicine, there is a need for health professionals to be well-informed about several aspects of CAM. Traditionally, pharmacy curriculums do not include in-depth courses on CAM. %26lt;br%26gt;Objectives: To evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of senior pharmacy students on CAM and to document their perception towards the current curriculum related to CAM. %26lt;br%26gt;Method: A cross sectional survey using a 20-item questionnaires was conducted. One hundred and thirty two questionnaires were distributed among final year pharmacy students at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), of whom 96 responded (response rate 72.7%). The data were analyzed using SPSS version 14.0 and Microsoft (R) Excel. Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were used for data analysis. %26lt;br%26gt;Results: An overwhelming proportion of the students (about 90%) agreed that knowledge about CAM is important to them as future pharmacy practitioners and 84.4% believed that clinical care should integrate the best of conventional and CAM practices; 89.6% of the respondents agreed that health professionals should be able to advise their patients on commonly used CAM methods. However 36.5% did not believe they had received sufficient training to advise patients on their use of CAM. Evaluation of students%26apos; knowledge about CAM found that only 31.3% attained a a score of 80% or more, whereas 68.8% had scores below 80%. %26lt;br%26gt;Conclusion: This study showed that senior pharmacy students at Universiti Sains Malaysia USM overall have an positive perception of CAM, but their levels of knowledge apppear to reflect the inadequacy of training about CAM in the current pharmacy curriculum. The study therefore highlights the need for curriculum review and innovation in order to introduce comprehensive courses related to CAM at USM, and perhaps at other pharmacy schools.

• 出版日期2012-3