Table 2.
CAM and Conventional Medicine Practitioners’ ratings of the effectiveness of CAM therapies, stratified by the journal in which research data is presented and the type of CAM studied.
| Vignettes and Factors | CAM Practitioners | Conventional Medical Practitioners | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | “Effective” % | P-value† (unadj.) | OR‡ (adj.) | 95% C.I. | N | “Effective” % | P- value† (unadj.) | OR‡ (adj.) | 95% C.I. | ||
|
Research Vignette #1: Clinical Trial of a CAM therapy for osteoarthritis of hand showing improvement in pain scores | |||||||||||
| Journal Source | Annals of Int. Medicine | 439 | 85 | 0.4 | 1.0 | -- | 329 | 54 | 0.09 | 1.0 | -- |
| Journal of CAM | 420 | 83 | 0.9 | (0.6, 1.3) | 317 | 48 | 0.8 | (0.6, 1.0) | |||
| CAM Therapy | Reiki (ref) | 174 | 76 | <.001 | 1.0 | -- | 135 | 49 | 0.94 | 1.0 | -- |
| Acupuncture | 159 | 95 | 5.8 | (2.6, 12.8) | 122 | 49 | 1.0 | (0.6, 1.7) | |||
| Glucosamine | 156 | 83 | 1.5 | (0.9, 2.7) | 128 | 52 | 1.2 | (0.7, 1.9) | |||
| Massage | 182 | 89 | 2.5 | (1.4, 4.5) | 126 | 53 | 1.2 | (0.7, 1.9) | |||
| Meditation | 188 | 78 | 1.1 | (0.7, 1.8) | 135 | 52 | 1.2 | (0.7, 1.9) | |||
|
Research Vignette #2: Clinical Trial of a CAM therapy for carpal tunnel syndrome showing no improvement | |||||||||||
| Journal Source | Annals of Int. Medicine (ref) | 403 | 25 | 0.27 | 1.0 | -- | 319 | 3 | |||
| Journal of CAM | 414 | 28 | 1.3 | (0.9, 1.8) | 331 | 3 | |||||
| CAM Therapy | Reiki (ref) | 153 | 11 | <.001 | 1.0 | -- | 132 | 2 | |||
| Acupuncture | 163 | 65 | 15.0 | (8.3, 27.4) | 122 | 3 | |||||
| Glucosamine | 171 | 16 | 1.6 | (0.8, 3.0) | 125 | 2 | |||||
| Massage | 169 | 25 | 2.7 | (1.4, 4.9) | 139 | 5 | |||||
| Meditation | 161 | 17 | 1.7 | (0.9, 3.2) | 132 | 2 | |||||
†
Unadjusted p-value from Chi-Square test comparing percent rating “effective” across levels of factor.
‡
Odds ratio from multivariable logistic regression model estimating odds of rating a practice as “effective”, if given a specific factor when controlling for all other factors.