Complementary and alternative medicine use among infertile women attending infertility specialty clinics in South Korea: does perceived severity matter?open access
- Authors
- Hwang, Jung Hye; Kim, Yi Young; Im, Hyea Bin; Han, Dongwoon
- Issue Date
- Nov-2019
- Publisher
- BMC
- Keywords
- Infertility; Reproductive health; Complementary and alternative medicine; Perceived severity of illness; Korea
- Citation
- BMC COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, v.19, no.1, pp.1 - 9
- Indexed
- SCIE
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- BMC COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
- Volume
- 19
- Number
- 1
- Start Page
- 1
- End Page
- 9
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/hanyang/handle/2021.sw.hanyang/146872
- DOI
- 10.1186/s12906-019-2727-x
- ISSN
- 1472-6882
- Abstract
- Background
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among infertile women is popular in many countries, including Korea. Previous research has repeatedly found more than half of infertile women surveyed use CAM therapies for fertility enhancement and overall well-being. However, there is currently little evidence to support this practice, and this raises the question of infertile women’s experiences in the uptake of those modalities and sociodemographic and psychological factors associated with CAM use. Thus, this study aims to explore the perceptions and experiences of infertile women with regard to their use of CAM in Korea.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from 263 infertile women attending infertility specialty clinics in Seoul, Korea, in June 2012. The survey instrument included 47 questions on the use of CAM, demographic characteristics, health status, and infertility related factors such as duration and type of infertility, experience and satisfaction of conventional treatment, and self-perceived severity of infertility condition. Chi-square test and logistic regression were used for data analysis.
Results
Among 286 respondents (response rate, 95.3%), a total of 263 women were included in the final analysis. 63.5% of respondents used one or more types of CAM modalities during infertility treatment. The utilization of CAM was associated with employment status, duration of infertility treatment, and self-perceived severity of the disease. The most commonly used CAM modalities were multivitamin and herbal medicine, and differences in types of CAM modalities used were found between the group with a higher rating of self-perceived disease severity and the lower perceived severity group.
Conclusions
High prevalence of CAM use among infertile women was observed in Korea. Our findings support that infertile women’s own understanding of their illness and physical condition influences self-care behavior such as CAM use. This calls for an urgent need for further in-depth study of the clinical effects of popular CAM modalities among infertile women when used in conjunction with conventional treatment.
- Files in This Item
-
- Appears in
Collections - 서울 의과대학 > 서울 예방의학교실 > 1. Journal Articles
- 서울 의과대학 > 서울 산부인과학교실 > 1. Journal Articles
![qrcode](https://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?size=55x55&data=https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/hanyang/handle/2021.sw.hanyang/146872)
Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.