Prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine use among Iranian infertile women: a multi-center cross-sectional study

Objectives: It has been speculated that infertile women use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) frequently in addition to conventional therapy. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine use among Iranian infertile women.Design: This multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted in four public and private referral infertility clinics located in different metropolitan areas of Iran including Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz from August to December 2019. Any infertile woman attending infertility clinic checked for eligibility and 282 infertile women were selected by convenience sampling. A self-structured questionnaire consisted of three parts including demographic, infertility-related and CAM-related data was completed on a self-report basis. SPSS software version 25 was used for data analysis using descriptive statistical methods and Logistic regression model.Results: Mean number of different CAM methods used was 2.95±1.88. Also, 54.04 percent of women used CAM at least once for infertility in the last year. CAM use included Iranian traditional medicine (ITM), Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and other methods. The most commonly used method and mode of CAM were ITM (%95. 4) and Iranian herbal medicine (70.2%), respectively. Most of participants (%61. 3) did not disclose their use of CAM to the physicians. The majority of participants (%72. 7) received recommendations from family and friends for CAM use.Conclusions: CAM use was prevalent among Iranian infertile women and ITM and herbal medicines were the most common. Therefore, it is requires that a coherent plan be developed to integrate CAM use into the classic medicine.

کلیدواژه ها:

Complementary and alternative medicine ، Infertility ، women ، Iran Prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine use among Iranian infertile women: a multi-center cross-sectional study