Perceptions and Usage of Glucosamine in Osteoarthritis Management: A Regional Survey of Primary Care Practitioners

Glucosamine is a pop u lar al ter na tive treat merit for osteo -arthritis. Cur rent be liefs and prac tices among pri mary care med i cal prac-ti tio ners re gard ing the use of oral glucosamine for osteoarthritis (OA) man age ment were in ves ti gated by survey. A ques tion naire mailed to 600 ran domly se lected Ar i zona phy si cians and Phy si cian As sis tants yielded 195 re sponses. Sev enty-nine per cent rec om mended glucosamine to patients with osteoarthritis, and over half of the re spon dents be lieved that glucosamine has an al ge sic ben e fits and/or ac tiv ity against car ti lage deg ra-da tion. Only 16% of prac ti tio ners be lieved that glucosamine has ad verse effects, and 8% had re ceived ad verse re ports from pa tients. Fifty-six percent ofrespondentsfeltthatsufficientempiricalevidenceexiststosupport the use of glucosamine for 0 A. There fore, it ap pears that a con sid er able por tion of pri mary care pro vid ers in Ar i zona per ceive glucosamine as a safe and beneficial treat merit for 0 A.