Epidemiology of the use of complementary and alternative medicine in central area of São Paulo

• Grant number: 11/18140-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2012
• End date: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Oziris Simões
• Grantee: Oziris Simões
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da Santa Casa de São Paulo (FCMSCSP). Fundação Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Alternative medicine is used to describe practice in independent health or in place of the conventional one such as acupuncture, chiropractic, and herbal medicine. Although heterogeneous, the so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has common features, including a focus on the whole person. The constant and growing use in the world, makes the epidemiological study of these practices very important. Given this, and the fact that there are few studies aimed to characterize the population of São Paulo, the proposal of this research is to establish the profile of the paulista citizen in relation to these alternative practices, based on the existing literature and the hypothesis that the use of CAM is mediated by factors such as social class, education, gender, age and dissatisfaction by the mainstream medicine. In addition, this study aims to contribute to the PSF (Programa Saúde da Família) in order to provide data that allow these alternative practices, so used by the population, to be implemented satisfactorily in the UBS. (AU)