Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine (HCAM) Knowledge Levels and Attitudes of Health Service Managers in Integrating HCAM with Health Tourism: Case of Thrace Region

Abstract

In the study, it is intended to reveal the current knowledge levels and attitudes of managers in Thrace Region about Holistic and Alternative Medicine by associating traditional complementary medicine with health tourism and to define their demographic effect levels and whether their attitudes for methods differ according to their knowledge levels of Holistic and Alternative Medicine. It was carried out with 143 health service managers, in 7 public hospitals and 10 private hospitals in Edirne, Kırklareli and Tekirdağ provinces.“Complementary and Alternative Medicine Information Form and Attitude about Integrative Complementary and Alternative Medicine” were used to collect the data. Number, percentage distribution, mean and standard deviation values were stated for descriptive data and Kolmogorov Smirnov-Shapiro Wilks,The Kruskall-Wallis Test were used to. According to study, 31.5% of managers were between the ages of 46-50, 60.1% were men, 39.9% were women, 72.2% were working in public, 27.3% were working in private institutions. 97.2% of the managers didnot receive CAM training/course, 61.5% wanted to be trained on CAM, 48% of the managers had some knowledge about music therapy, 61.5% of the managers had some knowledge about herbal treatments, 52.4% of the managers had some knowledge about massage and 63.6% of them had some knowledge about acupuncture. 68.5% of the managers obtained information from the internet and 37.2% from the television. There wasnot any difference in their approach according to gender and type of institution for the methods