Health Literacy and Attitudes to Holistic, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine in Peritoneal Dialysis Patients: A Descriptive Study

Article information Article title Health Literacy and Attitudes to Holistic, Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Peritoneal Dialysis Patients- A Descriptive Study Authors Nurcan UZDİL* Züleyha KILIÇ Affiliations Nurcan Uzdil is Assistant Professor (RN, PhD), Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Mental Health and Disease Nursing, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey Züleyha Kılıç is Assistant Professor (RN, PhD), Department of Internal Diseases Nursing, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Zübeyde Hanım School of Health, 51100, Niğde -Turkey. Corresponding author’s email address and Twitter handle nuzdil@erciyes.edu.tr Keywords Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Health Literacy, Holistic, Peritoneal Dialysis. Abstract İntroduction: Chronic renal failure (CRF) patients use many complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices to manage their symptoms. This research was conducted descriptively and relationally to determine the relationship between the attitudes of peritoneal dialysis patients toward holistic CAM and their health literacy (HL) levels. Methods: The study was conducted on 91 peritoneal dialysis patients who were treated in the adult peritoneal dialysis unit of a university, met the inclusion criteria, and agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected using the survey form Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine Questionnaire (HCAMQ) and Health Literacy Scale (HLS). Ethics committee approval, institutional permission, and informed consent of the patients included in the study were obtained. Results: It was observed that 72.5% of peritoneal dialysis patients use CAM, and the mean HCAMQ score was 24.03 ± 7.94. Moreover, 76.9% of the patients implementing CAM used herbal methods, and 92.3% preferred CAM to strengthen immunity. İn addition, 63.6% patients did not inform healthcare personnel about their CAM use. In the present study, the mean HLS score of peritoneal dialysis patients was 102.88 ± 21.06, and a statistically significant and negative correlation was observed between the mean HCAMQ and HLS scores (r=-0.240; p