© 2017 Journal of Basic and Clinical Pharmacy 62 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Doctor’s Perception on Integrated Medicine: A Survey Asha Basavareddy, Meenakshi Lella, Sarala Narayana Department of Pharmacology, Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research Tamaka, Kolar, Karnataka, India ABSTRACT Objective: To assess attitude and practice of the modern medicine practitioners towards integration of modern medicine (MM) and traditional medicine (TM) using questionnaire. Methods: A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice among doctors regarding integrated medicine. Two hundred and seven out of 250 completed questionnaires were received from various doctors from in and around Indian city Kolar and Bangalore. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square test. Results: A total of 82.8% participants responded to the questionnaire, of which 69 were general practitioners and 138 were consultants from various specialties. About 56.5% accessed the information regarding TM and had better knowledge (47%) regarding integrated medicine compared to those who didn’t (13%) (p<0.001). More than 57% opined that TM was cheap and easily accessible, however, majority of participants believed MM to be more popular (74.5%). The disadvantages reported of TM being minimum training (63.7%), unqualifed traditional medicine practitioners (TMPs) (63.7%), inappropriate dose calculation (52.1%), lack of scientifc evidence (57%), toxicity (42%) and unreliable diagnostic techniques (74.3%). About 71.5% doctors took history about TM use from their patients and 85.9% doctors treated them. Majority (77%) did not advise any TM. Though 81.6% had never collaborated with TMPs, 55.6% supported integration of TM with MM and believed this integrated approach would have positive impact on patients. Conclusion: Majority of modern medicine practitioners were aware of traditional medicine. They believed that adequate scientifc evidence and training of TMPs is required to accept and integrate TM with MM which may help in better patient care. Key words: Allopathic doctors, perception, integrated medicine Correspondence: Dr. Sarala Narayana Department of Pharmacology, Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Tamaka, Kolar-563 101, Karnataka, India. E-mail: n_sarala@rediffmail.com Access this article online Website: www.jbclinpharm.org Quick Response Code: INTRODUCTION Integrated medicine is a combination of conventional (Modern) and alternative (Traditional) medicine (TM) which addresses the biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of patient’s illness. [1] Traditional medications were developed by diferent philosophies with diverse cultural background. Te utilization of TM is popular in rural and urban areas because of its unique quality and afordability. [2] Te treatment approach varies in diferent systems of medicine, however all of them deal with human beings and aim at improving health. Te World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended its member states to promote and integrate TM into their National health care system. [3] In the last few years, India has implemented integrated medicine with the idea of providing optimum solution to growing health care crisis at manageable cost. [4] Department of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy (AYUSH), under the ministry of health and family welfare proposed a new approach by integrating various traditional practices of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy with modern medicine to ensure health for all. [5] Te integrated approach to treat an aliment is not a new concept but its position in India is still at infancy. Te success of this depends on the practitioner’s opinion and attitude towards other health care systems. All the practitioners should identify the values, beliefs, fundamentals, strengths and weaknesses of all the systems. Studies have shown that TM practitioner’s look for their counter parts of modern medicine to get more information about the illness/disease, but the same may not be with modern medicine practitioners. [6,7] Tis study was undertaken to assess attitude and practice of modern medicine practitioners towards integration of modern and traditional medicine using questionnaire. MATERIALS AND METHODS Tis was a cross sectional questionnaire based study, which was conducted from June to August 2015 at Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College, Tamaka, Kolar in Karnataka, India. Te study protocol was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee (reference: DMC/KLR/UDOME/ IEC/10/2015-16). All the general practitioners, post graduate students and consultants willing to participate in the study from hospitals in and around Kolar and Bangalore were included afer obtaining written informed consent. Te participants were briefed about the purpose of the study and participant information sheet was provided. A predesigned validated, questionnaire consisting of 24 questions (both open and close ended) was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice. Te questionnaire was validated for face and content validity by faculty from various departments and a pilot study was conducted among 10 consultants and their feedback from this pilot was used to make further changes in the questionnaire. Survey reliability was assessed using the Cronbach-alpha. Te principal investigator was available to answer questions and clarifcation from the participant while flling the questionnaire. Tese flled in questionnaires which were used to assess reliability were not included in the fnal study. Te questionnaire consisted of four parts. First part of the questionnaire contained eight questions regarding participants’ demographic information, qualifcation, specialization and assessing knowledge of traditional medicine. Second part of questionnaire (nine questions) was intended to collect opinion regarding advantages and disadvantages of traditional medicines. Seven questions were included in the third and fourth part of the questionnaire which assessed attitude towards This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms For reprints contact: invoice@jbclinpharm.org Cite this article as: Basavareddy A, Lella M, Narayana S. Doctor’s perception on integrated medicine: A survey. J Basic Clin Pharma 2017;8:62-65.