Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Committee Chair

Nicole Waters

Abstract

With the ever-growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the United States, patients may be using some of these therapies at home or may benefit from their use to help them heal from their symptoms and diseases. Registered nurses are in a great position to be able to assess patients for their use of CAM and provide necessary education. A review of literature found that nurses generally lacked adequate knowledge about CAM therapies. The purpose of this thesis study was to assess registered nurses’ attitudes towards CAM in regards to its role in patients’ healing, as attitudes often affect care that is provided by caregivers. A survey assessing nurses’ attitudes toward different aspects of CAM was sent via e-mail to registered nurses employed at two northern California hospitals. The results found that while nurses generally had favorable attitudes toward the ideas and philosophy behind complementary and alternative medicine, and the vast majority had used some form of CAM at some point in their lives, they were more hesitant to see its applicability to patients’ treatments. More evidence-based research studies into CAM therapies, coupled with inclusion of CAM in nursing education curricula, may help increase nurses’ knowledge of and comfort with CAM in patients’ treatment.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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