Use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with chronic tension-type headache: results of a headache clinic survey.
OBJECTIVE
This study was undertaken to evaluate the rates, pattern, and presence of predictors of complementary and alternative medicine use in a clinical population of patients with chronic tension-type headache.


BACKGROUND
The use of complementary and alternative medicine in the treatment of headaches is a growing phenomenon about which little is known.


METHODS
A total of 110 chronic tension-type headache patients attending a headache clinic participated in a physician-administered structured interview designed to gather information on complementary and alternative medicine use.


RESULTS
Past use of complementary and alternative therapies was reported by 40% of the patients surveyed (22.7% in the previous year). Chronic tension-type headache patients prefer complementary and alternative practitioner-administered physical treatments to self-treatments, the most frequently used being chiropractic (21.9%), acupuncture (17.8%), and massage (17.8%). Only 41.1% of the patients perceived complementary and alternative therapies to be beneficial. The most common source of recommendation of complementary and alternative medicine was a friend or relative (41.1%). Most of the chronic tension-type headache patients used complementary and alternative treatment as a specific intervention for their headache (77.3%). Almost 60% of complementary and alternative medicine users had not informed their medical doctors of their use of complementary and alternative medicine. The most common reasons given for choosing to use a complementary or alternative therapy was the "potential improvement of headache" it offered (45.4%). The patients who had used more complementary and alternative treatments were found to be those recording a higher lifetime number of visits to conventional medical doctors, those with a comorbid psychiatric disorder, those enjoying a higher (household) income, and those who had never tried a preventive pharmacological treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that headache-clinic chronic tension-type headache patients, in their need of and quest for care, seek and explore both conventional and complementary and alternative therapies, even if only 41.1% of them perceived complementary treatments as effective. Physicians should be made aware of this patient-driven change in the medical climate in order to prevent misuse of health care resources and to be better equipped to meet patients' care requirements.
Rossi
Paolo
P
Headache Clinic, INI Grottaferrata, Grottaferrata, Italy.
Di Lorenzo
Giorgio
G
Faroni
Jessica
J
Malpezzi
Maria G
MG
Cesarino
Francesco
F
Nappi
Giuseppe
G
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D018710:Pain Clinics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018781:Tension-Type Headache / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome