Table 4.

Differences between Consumption of Conventional Medications by Complementary and Alternative Medicine Users and Nonusers

Medications	CAM users (n=3333)		Nonusers (n=9821)		Odds ratio1	p-Value	Most predictive variables	Unknowns (n=1239)
High blood pressure medications	11.1	3	16.5	8	0.765	<0.001	Age, BMI, perceived health	34.5	8
Heart medications	4.8	3	7.1	6	0.831	0.065	Gender, age, BMI, perceived health	17.0	1
Cholesterol-lowering drugs	5.3	1	8.4	5	0.773	0.005	Gender, age, national language, BMI, perceived health	16.0	5
Medications for diabetes	1.6	1	2.7	2	0.795	0.145	Gender, age, BMI, perceived health	8.1	2
Soporifics	6.4	1	5.5	5	1.171	0.088	Gender, age, national language, perceived health	14.1	3
Analgesics	24.8	2	19.2	8	1.161	0.004	Age, national language, BMI, perceived health	25.2	1
Sedatives	6.2	2	4.2	4	1.196	0.059	Gender, national language, household structure, perceived health	8.1	1
Depression medications	5.8	1	3.4	3	1.294	0.012	Gender, age, national language, household structure, perceived health	6.5	2
Medications for constipation	2.8	1	2.1	3	1.315	0.046	Gender, age, perceived health	4.8	1
Asthma medications	2.3	1	2.2	5	0.907	0.475	Perceived health	3.6	1
Medications for osteoporosis	3.9	1	3.2	2	1.147	0.238	Gender, age, perceived health	5.7	1
Hormone replacement	5.9	1	4.3	11	0.986	0.882	Gender, age, national language	4.8	1

Values are percentages and number of no answers unless otherwise noted. Boldface denotes medications for which statistically significant differences were detected, upon correction for the relevant variables. Relevant variables were determined in each case by a Bayesian information criterion–based backward elimination.

¹Odds ratios, p values, and relevant variables were calculated only for complementary and alternative medicine users and nonusers; values for unknowns are shown on the right for comparison.

BMI, body–mass index; CAM, complementary and alternative medicine.