Practitioners’ Awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practices within Interprofessional Healthcare Teams in Institutions

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this research was to explore practitioners’ awareness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), broadly, and Music Therapy (MT) activity, specifically, within their healthcare institutions. The goal of this was to better evaluate their level of knowledge and understand their recommending practices of these modalities within their roles as interdisciplinary healthcare team (IDHT) members in those institutions for optimization of patient care decision-making. DESIGN A quantitative, descriptive, exploratory and cross-sectional research design was used to measure practitioners’ awareness of CAM and MT in their healthcare institution utilizing a principal investigator-created valid and reliable tool entitled the “Global Complementary/Alternative and Music Therapy Assessment (GCAMTA)." SETTING/LOCATION Data were collected electronically using various social media platforms and from several professional healthcare associations. SUBJECTS A sample of 499 healthcare practitioners participated. RESULTS Solo/group practitioners of small, private practices revealed high awareness (82-94%) of institutional CAM being provided and recommended as opposed to practitioners in larger institutions. Almost half of practitioners (48%) in larger hospital institutions are unaware if CAM is being recommended to patients. Although practitioners have positive or neutral overall impressions of MT, 83% of practitioners do not recommend MT in their current practice. Results of the Chi-Square Analysis were significant; practitioners in smaller, private practices are more aware of their institutional CAM as opposed to practitioners in larger hospital settings (p<0.00001, α = 0.05, χ²= 67.0531, 37.3433). In institutions providing CAM services, practitioners are highly apt to recommend these services to patients. In institutions not providing CAM services, practitioners may still recommend external CAM services if there is high awareness/knowledge (p<0.00001, α = 0.05, χ²= 229.0602) of CAM.  No associations were found between institution type/size and overall impression of MT (p=0.604306, α = 0.05, χ²= 1.0074) or between institution type/size and whether the practitioner recommends MT (p=0.08286, α = 0.05, χ²= 4.9812).  CONCLUSION A disconnect exists between practitioners’ knowledge and awareness of institutional CAM activities and IDHT utilization/effectiveness of CAM in patient care. The effectiveness is reliant on intra-organizational awareness of CAM activities (e.g. MT).  Focus on holistic education early in career and institution-wide educational workshops initiated by knowledgeable healthcare practitioners may prove beneficial in remedying this problem to improve patient outcomes.