Department Internal Medicine III, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Department Moral Theology and Ethics, Faculty of Catholic Theology, Erfurt University, Erfurt, Germany.
J Complement Integr Med. 2020 Jun 22;18(1):185-192. doi: 10.1515/jcim-2018-0023.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is used often by patients with different diseases. While some authors subsume religiousness and spirituality to CAM, others do not. The objective of the present study was to assess the prevalence and types of CAM usage as well as the participants' spirituality/religiousness in an outpatient department for endocrinology and metabolic diseases.
All individuals visiting the outpatient department at a German university hospital from April to June 2009 were offered a standardized questionnaire on the use of dietary supplements and alternative therapies as well as their religiousness/spirituality. Demographic and clinical data of 428 respondents were taken from the electronic health record.
Of the respondents, 16.4% (n = 66) classified themselves to be religious/spiritual and 67.9% (n = 273) as not religious/spiritual. Women were more religious/spiritual than men (p = 0.02). 41.4% of the respondents used supplements and 27.4% additional therapies. The use of supplements and additional therapies was more frequent in people with higher religiousness/spirituality (p = 0.005 and p = 0.01,resp.) but there were no associations between religiousness/spirituality and the number of consultations, costs for drugs, appraisal of the physicians treatment methods, the perceived effectiveness of prescribed drugs, fear of late complications or of side effects.
A higher religiousness/spirituality is associated with a more frequent use of supplements or additional therapies in individuals with endocrinopathies or metabolic diseases. As CAM has been shown to be associated with worse outcome, addressing religiousness/spirituality which stresses the responsibility of the person for his life might offer an additional resource and should be further studied.
补充和替代医学（CAM）常被患有不同疾病的患者使用。虽然有些作者将宗教信仰和精神性归入 CAM，而其他作者则没有。本研究的目的是评估内分泌和代谢疾病门诊患者 CAM 的使用频率和类型以及患者的精神/宗教信仰。
2009 年 4 月至 6 月期间，我们向在德国一家大学医院内分泌和代谢疾病门诊就诊的所有患者提供了一份关于膳食补充剂和替代疗法使用情况以及宗教信仰/精神性的标准化问卷。从电子健康记录中获取了 428 名受访者的人口统计学和临床数据。
受访者中，16.4%（n=66）认为自己是有宗教信仰/精神性的，67.9%（n=273）认为自己是没有宗教信仰/精神性的。女性比男性更有宗教信仰/精神性（p=0.02）。41.4%的受访者使用补充剂，27.4%的受访者使用补充疗法。宗教信仰/精神性越高，使用补充剂和补充疗法的人越多（p=0.005 和 p=0.01，分别），但宗教信仰/精神性与就诊次数、药物费用、对医生治疗方法的评价、对处方药物疗效的感知、对晚期并发症或副作用的恐惧之间没有关联。
在内分泌或代谢疾病患者中，较高的宗教信仰/精神性与更频繁地使用补充剂或补充疗法有关。由于 CAM 与较差的结果相关，因此关注强调个人对生活负责的宗教信仰/精神性可能会提供额外的资源，应该进一步研究。
