Albadr Badr O, Alrukban Mohammed, Almajed Jawad, Alotaibi Khalid, Alangari Abdullah, Bawazir Abdullah, Aljasser Abdulelah
Department of Family Medicine, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Professor of Family Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
J Family Community Med. 2018 May-Aug;25(2):120-126. doi: 10.4103/jfcm.JFCM_98_17.
Alternative medicine is defined as medical therapies that are not regarded as orthodox by the medical profession. The teaching of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in medical schools is becoming prevalent worldwide. Only a few studies have been done to assess medical students' attitude toward CAM and the need for CAM courses.
An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on medical students in two universities, King Saud (KSU) and Majmaah (MU) medical colleges, between February and April 2015. A survey was developed and validated by a pilot study. Data were gathered from both colleges by means of hard and soft copy surveys. Medical students of both genders from the 1 year to the 5 year from both universities were targeted in this study. Fifth-year students from Majmaah and students from the preparatory year were excluded from the study. KSU students comprised 1433, while MU students comprised only 180. The sample size was 384. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.
The study included 399 medical students. Bloodletting is the most known modality (80.7%), while homeopathy is the least known with a percentage of 7.47%. The overall assessment of the attitude toward CAM was neutral, with a mean of 3.1. Students who had taken a CAM course previously were more satisfied with their knowledge than those who had not, showing a statistical significance of P = 0.0001.
This study showed a lack of knowledge of CAM among medical students. There was an association between taking a CAM course and students' satisfaction with their knowledge. Most of the students agreed with the inclusion of CAM courses in the medical curriculum.
替代医学被定义为医学专业不视为正统的医学疗法。医学院校中补充与替代医学（CAM）的教学在全球范围内正变得普遍。仅有少数研究评估医学生对CAM的态度以及对CAM课程的需求。
2015年2月至4月，对沙特国王大学（KSU）和麦加玛大学（MU）医学院这两所大学的医学生开展了一项观察性、描述性横断面研究。通过一项预试验开发并验证了一份调查问卷。通过纸质和电子调查问卷从两所院校收集数据。本研究的目标是两所大学从1年级到5年级的男女医学生。麦加玛大学的五年级学生和预科班学生被排除在研究之外。KSU的学生有1433名，而MU的学生仅有180名。样本量为384。使用SPSS软件对数据进行分析。
该研究纳入了399名医学生。放血疗法是最广为人知的疗法（80.7%），而顺势疗法知晓率最低，为7.47%。对CAM态度的总体评估为中性，均值为3.1。之前上过CAM课程的学生比未上过的学生对自己的知识掌握情况更满意，P = 0.0001，具有统计学意义。
本研究表明医学生对CAM缺乏了解。修读CAM课程与学生对自身知识的满意度之间存在关联。大多数学生同意在医学课程中纳入CAM课程。
