The journal of alternative and complementary medicine : research on paradigm, practice, and policy
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J Altern Complement Med · Jan 2019
Use of Complementary and Integrated Health: A Retrospective Analysis of U.S. Veterans with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain Nationally.
To partially address the opioid crisis, some complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies are now recommended for chronic musculoskeletal pain, a common condition presented in primary care. As such, health care systems are increasingly offering CIH therapies, and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the nation's largest integrated health care system, has been at the forefront of this movement. However, little is known about the uptake of CIH among patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. As such, we conducted the first study of the use of a variety of nonherbal CIH therapies among a large patient population having chronic musculoskeletal pain. ⋯ Patients appear willing to use CIH approaches, given that 27% used some type. However, low rates of some specific CIH suggest the potential to augment CIH use.