Role of nurses in promoting complementary therapies.

The decline in the caring aspects of medicine has made technology appear cold and inhuman and has turned medicine into a physical, restorative profession. Because practitioners are disillusioned by the shortcomings of scientific medicine, a desire to explore alternative approaches to health has appeared. Many complementary methods are similar to nursing in that they centre on the concept of holism. The lack of research in complementary methods and the need for legal regulation of their practitioners have a potential to discredit this area of health care. Nurses are among the most suitable professional groups to help complementary health care methods to attain their rightful place. The role of the nursing profession in this process will be seen as an indication of its standing as an independent research-based profession.