Quality of Doctor-Patient Relationship and its Effect on Usage of Traditional and Complementary Medicine

Background: The present study aimed to study the quality of doctor-patient relationship, and measure the extent of relationship between the dissatisfaction with the doctor-patient relationship and the usage rate of traditional and complementary medicine among the people who visited the non-conventional medical centers in Shiraz city, Iran. Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional study in which 800 people who visited six non-conventional medical centers in July 2016 were enrolled; having gained their satisfaction, they were studied by method of complete enumeration. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Validity and reliability of data were confirmed and analyzed through SPSS software. Findings: 61 percent of visitors were dissatisfied with the quality of doctor-patient relationship to mediocre extent. There was a significant correlation between the dissatisfaction extent of visitors for doctor-patient relationship and the usage rate of traditional and complementary medicine in that the high dissatisfaction extent was accompanied with the high consumption rate of traditional and complementary medicine. Conclusion: The usage rate of the traditional and complementary medicine is in relation with the dissatisfaction extent of medical behavior. Thus, providing the doctor-patient relationship is not improved, high dissatisfaction and high consumption of non-conventional medicine will be seen. Therefore, it is to take action to improve the doctor-patient relationship by means of education, and culturalization; in addition, it is to pay more attention to parties’ rights in order to avoid the consequences of excessive and without doctors’ leave usage of traditional and complementary medicine.