Frequency of current utilisation of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to examine the frequency and characteristics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). METHOD: In order to collect sociodemographic and disease related variables as well as aspects of CAM utilisation 254 MS patients were examined with an interview. The investigation was completed by data of the neurological examination. RESULTS: At the time of investigation 67.3% of the MS patients reported that they were currently using one or more CAMs. Overall, most of the overall utilized therapies (90.6%) were chosen as a complement and 9.4% as an alternative therapy. Users of complementary medicine were more severely affected by the MS than non-users and had a longer duration of illness. No sociodemographic differences were found between users and non-users. When evaluating the efficacy of CAM, patients reported improvement in 67.1%, no influence in 32.3% and worsening in 0.6% of the cases. 3.7% of the CAM therapies were accompanied by minor side effects. CONCLUSIONS: Since MS patients are frequently using CAM despite the absence of clinically proven efficacy and appraise it positively, further research on the motivation for utilisation and on objective effects of CAM are needed.