Underreporting of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Arthritis Patients in an Orthopedic Clinic

Underreporting of complementary and alternative medi­cine (CAM) use can negatively affect patient care. The degree of such underreporting in a clinical orthopedic set­ting was assessed in a cross-sectional study of 50 patients with osteoarthritis by administering a standard medical history and then a specific CAM-use questionnaire.

Of these patients, 70% were using CAM, and 64% underreported CAM use on the standard medical his­tory. The difference in CAM-use reporting between the 2 surveys was significant (P = .027). Mean individual CAM use was 1.53 times higher on the specific questionnaire than on the standard medical history. Study results dem­onstrate the prevalence of CAM use among orthopedic patients and significant increases in CAM reporting on the specific questionnaire.