The prevalence of use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) in the general population is substantial.

TCAM prevalence studies use different operational definitions, methods and data collection tools (including question types), which limits comparability across studies and further analyses.

For best practice, TCAM prevalence studies should provide an operational definition for TCAM and describe the range of TCAM practices/therapies/products included, collect comprehensive (specific) data on TCAM practices/therapies/products exposures and describe the data-coding criteria and processes used in the study.