A qualitative study of integrating complementary alternative medicine

The use of Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been on the increase. Mental health practitioners are using CAM in their practice. This qualitative study explored the psychiatrists' perceptions about integrating CAM with their current practice. Other questions to support the main questions were, how they dealt with the ramifications of using integrated therapy, the outcomes of using integrative approach versus the conventional approach, how other psychiatrists in the community react to integrative treatment, and how psychiatric hospitals accept integrative treatment. A semi-structured, open-ended interview was utilized to examine the actual experiences of the psychiatrists. Responses were transcribed and analyzed. NVivo 9 software was used for coding specific themes. The results showed the psychiatrists felt there was a need for more CAM treatment as the patients still felt more trust in scientifically tested medicine. The second theme was there were no side effects from integrated therapy. The third was that younger psychiatrists are more interested in integrative therapy. The last theme discovered a group of psychiatrists still did not believe in the use of integrative therapy. The results of this study may be useful for practitioners wanting to integrate CAM and for any further research.