• Eliana Sueco Tibana Samano, Patricia Taschner Goldenstein, Lia de Melo Ribeiro, Fabio Lewin, FilhoEdgar Santiago ValesinES, Heloisa Prado Soares, and Auro del Giglio.
• Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2004 Mar 4; 122 (2): 606360-3.

ContextThe use of complementary/alternative medicine has been little studied in Brazil.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of complementary/alternative medicine use among a group of Brazilian cancer patients and correlate these findings with the patients' quality of life.Type Of StudyDescriptive.SettingOncology Institute of the Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil.Participants100 cancer patients.ProceduresThe EORTC QLQ C-30 quality of life questionnaire was applied together with another questionnaire on the use of complementary/alternative medicine.Main MeasurementsUse of complementary/alternative medicine and quality of life.Results89% of the patients had already used complementary/alternative medicine, 63% were currently using it and most of them (77.7%) believed in the efficacy of complementary/alternative medicine for their treatment. The type most used was individual prayer (77.5%). We found a significant association between believing in the efficacy of complementary/alternative medicine and praying (individually or in groups), in comparison with better scores on the functional (p = 0.001) and overall health (p = 0.001) quality of life scales. Multivariate analysis confirmed these findings regarding praying and also showed that believing in complementary/alternative medicine correlated significantly with functional and symptom quality of life scores.ConclusionThe prevalence of complementary/alternative medicine use in this group of cancer patients was high. Praying and belief in the efficacy of complementary/alternative medicine correlated significantly with an overall better quality of life, and therefore these practices should not be discouraged by physicians. New prospective studies should be conducted in order to better characterize the efficacy of such alternative therapeutic approaches.

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