Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 1997; 2: 186
Complementary medicine is gaining in popularity. The aim is to discover the incidence of homoeopathic medicine use within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood.
Self-completion questionnaires sent to the 14000 mothers included questions about their use of homoeopathic medicine for both themselves and their children. They were asked to describe the actual homoeopathic medicines taken.
The mothers’ questionnaire sent during pregnancy, revealed that of 13082 respondents to the question ‘Do you ever take homoeopathic medicines?’, 9.8% (1279) replied either ‘yes often’ or ‘yes sometimes’. The same question about the children when 18 months of age, showed that of the 10750 respondents, 7.9% (853) of the children had been said to have been given homoeopathic medicines at some time in their lives. However, whilst most of the medicines when described were indeed homoeopathic (n=419), mothers also gave descriptions of non-homoeopathic medicines - herbs (139), oils (47), vitamins, minerals and supplements (66), other complementary therapies (21) and even allopathic medicines (21), e.g. “about 2 years ago I took Royal Jelly and Methadone”.
Although almost 1 in 10 of those in the survey said that they had used homoeopathic medicine, it is clear that public misconception exists as to the appreciation of the term homoeopathic.
