Table 3.
Health Condition of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Users, Nonusers, and Unknowns
| Characteristic | CAM users (n = 3333) | Nonusers (n = 9821) | Unknowns (n = 1239) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health status | ||||||
| Very good | 597 | 17.9 | 2,102 | 21.4 | 177 | 14.3 |
| Good | 2,238 | 67.2 | 6,641 | 67.6 | 732 | 59.1 |
| Middle | 383 | 11.5 | 874 | 8.9 | 252 | 20.4 |
| Bad | 92 | 2.8 | 172 | 1.8 | 68 | 5.5 |
| Very bad | 22 | 0.7 | 28 | 0.3 | 9 | 0.7 |
| NA | 1 | – | 4 | – | 1 | – |
| Long-lasting or chronic diseases | 1116 | 33.5 | 7157 | 27.0 | 484 | 39.1 |
| Migraine | 176 | 5.6 | 159 | 1.7 | 29 | 3.5 |
| Asthma | 116 | 3.5 | 231 | 2.4 | 37 | 3.0 |
| High blood glucose | 60 | 1.8 | 271 | 2.8 | 92 | 7.4 |
| Diabetes* | 109 | 3.3 | 469 | 4.8 | 142 | 11.5 |
| High blood pressure | 325 | 9.8 | 1338 | 13.6 | 271 | 21.9 |
| High blood pressure* | 625 | 18.8 | 2374 | 24.3 | 485 | 39.4 |
| Infarction | 29 | 0.9 | 121 | 1.2 | 25 | 2.0 |
| Apoplectic stroke | 32 | 1.0 | 104 | 1.1 | 33 | 2.7 |
| Cholesterol (present value) | ||||||
| Normal | 2,580 | 94.4 | 7636 | 95.3 | 1037 | 95.4 |
| Too high | 153 | 5.6 | 373 | 4.7 | 50 | 4.6 |
| Doesn't know | 600 | – | 1812 | – | 152 | – |
| NA | 0 | – | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Cholesterol* | ||||||
| Yes | 564 | 17.1 | 1769 | 18.2 | 292 | 23.9 |
| No | 2743 | 82.9 | 7941 | 81.8 | 929 | 76.1 |
| Doesn't know | 26 | – | 111 | – | 18 | – |
| NA | 0 | – | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Arthritis | 333 | 10.5 | 683 | 7.3 | 175 | 19.5 |
| Osteoporosis | 100 | 3.0 | 215 | 2.2 | 45 | 3.6 |
| Cancer | 58 | 1.7 | 155 | 1.6 | 32 | 2.6 |
| Allergies | 344 | 10.3 | 490 | 5.0 | 46 | 3.7 |
| Depression | 267 | 8.0 | 338 | 3.4 | 67 | 5.4 |
| BMI | ||||||
| Underweight | 146 | 4.4 | 335 | 3.4 | 38 | 3.1 |
| Normal | 2181 | 66.0 | 5591 | 57.4 | 572 | 47.2 |
| Overweight | 780 | 23.6 | 2979 | 30.6 | 448 | 37.0 |
| Adipositas | 200 | 6.0 | 827 | 8.5 | 154 | 12.7 |
| NA | 26 | – | 89 | – | 27 | |
*
Diagnosed by medical professionals.
Values are the number and percentage of respondents. Boldface denotes the most predictive specific diseases for the use of complementary and alternative medicine, as revealed by a Bayesian information criterion–based backward elimination in which sociodemographic variables were considered as well.