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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

religiosity, alternative medicine, Hispanic patients

College

Life Sciences

Department

Health Science

Abstract

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has steadily become more widespread. For the first time, the use of traditional healers was included in the definition of CAM on the 2007 NHIS. Several Hispanic-specific CAM studies have included a variety of traditional healing and folk CAM therapies. Despite efforts to categorize CAM therapies, a common shortfall of many Hispanic- specific studies is the inclusion of prayer as a CAM practice. When included, the high prevalence of prayer has been found to greatly inflate estimates of CAM utilization.1 The tendency to include prayer in evaluating Hispanic CAM use might be expected as it has been noted that a fundamental aspect of Hispanic culture and spiritually is its interest in physical, mental, and spiritual healing.2 Religiosity is recognized as a multidimensional construct useful in measuring the degree of various religious behavior, belief, and spirituality. Degree of religiosity can be measured independent of religious sect, denomination, or tradition. The purpose of this study was to more fully understand the relationship between religiosity and both mainstream and traditional CAM use among a Hispanic population.

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