A Comparison of Clinical Oncologists and Family Physicians toward Complementary and Alternative Medicine in South Korea: Perceptions, Attitudes and Physician-Patient Communication

Results: Of 500 physicians, males were 73.4%, and 82.0% were middle-aged 30-49. Family physicians had more interest than oncologists about CAM (79.5% and 57.5%, respectively). In addition to, family physicians preferred introducing CAM to their patients than oncologists (34.1% and 18.4%, respectively). Almost 85% of the oncologists and family physicians thought that it was necessary to introduce CAM to their patients. However, 60.2% of them had hesitated their practice because 70.3% of them did not have suffi cient knowledge in CAM. Both specialty physicians responded that usefulness of CAM information when regarding practice, should contain evidence-based evaluation (59.2%) and consensus guideline (37.0%). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that most physicians did not have sufficient information regarding CAM (87.2%). The result implies that evidence based information on complementaryand alternative medicine should be offered in the national level to improve communication between physicians and patients.