Utilization of and Attitudes towards Traditional Chinese Medicine Therapies in a Chinese Cancer Hospital: A Survey of Patients and Physicians

Table 2

Proportion of patients who used TCM and discussed TCM with physicians, reason why use is not discussed, and physician response to disclosure.

			Reason why use is not discussed			Physician response to use disclosure
Therapy	Used (%)	Discussed with physician (%)	Doctor never asked	Doctor would discourage	Not important for doctor to know	Encouraged me to continue	Asked me to stop	Neutral
			% yes	% yes	% yes	% yes	% yes	% yes
TCM overall	83.5	63.5
Chinese herbal medicine (CHM)	54.5	70.9
Herbal decoctions	47.6	65.2	65.0	7.5	17.5	54.1	5.4	36.5
Patent medicines	31.8	68.8	52.2	8.7	30.4	71.7	5.7	20.8
Herbal injections	2.5	100.0	N/A	N/A	N/A	83.3	0.0	0.0
Tonics and food therapy	69.2	40.5
Tonics/supplements	50.4	41.5	63.8	10.1	11.6	33.3	15.7	49.0
Food therapy	41.5	27.9	44.1	0.0	51.5	70.4	7.4	14.8
Movement/physical therapies	6.8	23.1
Qi Gong	3.4	12.5	42.9	0.0	57.1	100.0	0.0	0.0
Tai Qi	4.0	22.2	71.4	0.0	28.6	100.0	0.0	0.0
Acupuncture	1.3	100.0	N/A	N/A	N/A	100.0	0.0	0.0