title: Teaching patients how to talk with biomedical providers about their complementary and alternative medicine use.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goal was to examine the feasibility and impact of a face-to-face communication skills training intervention based on a current public health campaign to encourage patients to talk about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with their biomedical health providers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Current CAM users were invited to complete a survey about current/past CAM use and communication with biomedical providers before beginning a communication skills training workshop. In the 6-month period following the training, participants were asked to record information on any CAM conversations with those providers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 38 participants who received training, 32 finished the entire study. Over half of those participants reported discussing CAM in post-training visits with biomedical providers. Participants initiated the conversation in most cases, and were more likely to disclose CAM use than they were to ask questions about CAM. Participants who talked about CAM were significantly more likely to perceive CAM as relevant to their visit, compared with individuals who did not talk about CAM.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Participants positively evaluated this patient communication workshop. Consistent with previous research, most CAM conversations were patient-initiated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings reinforce the importance of patient education interventions for improving patient-provider communication in general, and CAM communication specifically.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Studies, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA. eyho@usfca.edu
authors.forename: Evelyn Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: D'Agostino
authors.forename: Vivien
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Yadegar
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.forename: Carma L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Bylund
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002140:California; D003142:Communication; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D055815:Young Adult